THE VOICE WITHIN

One Easter Sunday morning, a pastor came to the Church carrying a rusty, bent, old bird cage, and set it by the pulpit. Several eyebrows were raised and, as if in response, the pastor began to speak:
“I was walking through town yesterday when I saw a young boy coming toward me, swinging this bird cage. On the bottom of the cage were three little wild birds, shivering with cold and fright. I stopped the lad and asked, ‘What you got there son?’
‘Just some old birds,’ came the reply.
‘What are you going to do with them?’ I asked.
‘Take ‘em home and have fun with ‘em. I’m gon tease ‘em and pull out their feathers to make ‘em fight.”
‘But you’ll get tired of those birds sooner or later. What will you do then?’
‘Oh, I got some cats. They like birds. I’ll take ‘em to them.’
‘How much do you want for those birds, son?’
‘Huh? Why, you don’t want them birds, mister! They’re just plain old field birds. They don’t sing, they ain’t even pretty!’
‘How much?’
The boy stared at the pastor as if he were mad and asked, ’10 dollars?’.
The pastor reached in his pocket and took out a ten dollar bill. He placed it in the boy’s hand. In a flash, the boy was gone.
The pastor picked up the cage and gently carried it to the end of the alley where there was a tree and a grassy spot. Setting the cage down, he opened the door, and by softly tapping the bars persuaded the birds out, setting them free.
Well, that explained the empty bird cage on the pulpit, and then the pastor began to tell another story:
“One day Satan and Jesus were having a conversation. Satan had just come from the Garden of Eden, and he was gloating and boasting.
‘I just caught the world full of people down there. Set a trap, used bait I knew they couldn’t resist. Got them all!’
‘What are you going to do with them?’ Jesus asked.
‘I will teach them how to marry and divorce each other, how to hate and abuse each other. how to drink and curse, how to invent guns and bombs and kill each other. I am really going to enjoy it!’
‘And what will you do when you are through with them?’, Jesus asked.
‘Oh, I will snuff out their lives after they are thoroughly degraded.’
‘How much do you want for them?’
‘Oh, you do not want those people! They are no good. You take them under your wing and they’ll just hate you, curse you and be ungrateful to you in all possible ways.’
‘How much?’
Satan looked at Jesus and sneered, ‘All your tears, and all your blood.’ 
And Jesus paid the price.”
Having made his point to the congregation that had fallen silent, the pastor picked up the cage and walked off from the pulpit.
—the harbinger