It was about 2:00 in the morning on a cold January 1971 night in Greeley, Colorado, when we heard a loud rapping on the door to our small apartment. As I went to the door I remembered the saying, “Nothing good happens after midnight.”  When I opened the door, there was a policeman standing there.

I will never forget what he said.  He said, “Hi, Teach!”  Then I recognized him as a student in one of my classes. I hadn’t known that he was a policeman until then.  I learned he was taking a couple of courses each semester towards his degree, while working full time.

You don’t expect to hear good news in the middle of the night, and we didn’t. He told us that a driver had lost control of his car and crashed into our car. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but our car was totaled. The news hit us hard, since we didn’t have money for another car. We’d arrived in Greeley in the fall with two sleeping bags, two lawn chairs, a small table, my mother’s treadle sewing machine and only enough money for rent and food until my first paycheck. By January we still had only partially furnished our apartment, primarily with thrift store furniture. Fortunately, a colleague in my department was on the board of the credit union, and we were able to finance a car, even though the driver’s insurance tried to delay paying for ours as long as possible.

For some reason, probably because of the policeman at the door, thinking about this incident brought to mind 1 Thessalonians 5:2 where Paul says that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. I’ve never understood people’s fascination with the end times, and indeed I think this very verse says it’s useless to worry about it, since we will be given no foreknowledge. In verse 5 Paul goes on to say that we are children of the light, and not the darkness.

I have heard sermons that tried to cudgel people into believing, using guilt and the threat of judgment. I think the Gospel, the good news, should not be spread using such darkness  We should emphasize that Christ is the light of the world. A few Sundays ago our closing hymn was “This Little Light of Mine.”  By the last verse the congregation was joyfully clapping. What a wonderful way to show people that God loves them unconditionally!

Jim