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STORY: The Disciplines of a Father

Updated: Jun 25


Johannes had fallen in among unholy friends.


His father had been killed, being kicked by a horse and run over by its hay cart when Johannes was only two. His mother was busy sewing for the local factory and caring for his sickly sister, So Johannes found his society among the other neglected boys of the streets in Erfurt, Germany of the 1550's.


They found their play in the dirty corners of society, stealing from sleeping drunks and reaching for pinches of bare skin and leftover steins outside the brothels. Into their teenage years those vices grew to piss-stained drunkenness and sexual exploits serving as their only salve to parentless childhood that brought scorn from a condescending village.


But at age 13, after seeing friends arrested, one lose an eye, one drown when drunk, and one killed by drunk adults, Johannes knew he must shape up soon or he would find a similar fate.


And that is how Johannes found himself trespassing yet again, kneeling in the town's dark basilica alone at the altar at 1:30 in the morning. "God, I can't stop doing it. My vices sins haunt me still." His forehead weighed heavily on his folded knuckles, his hands resting on the splintery wooden railing, and the stone step exacting due punishment on his boney knees. He looked up at the emaciated body hanging on the crucifix, also bleeding from the head, hands and knees. His eyes drifted down to the altar draped with a white cloth. The cloth was embroidered with the words, "Father, to you I commend my spirit."


Johannes cocked his head and stared at the word, "Father." To him this word meant a guide and protector he did not have. A father would have disciplined him, so that he could have avoided all this rotting life.


It sounded like Jesus trusted God as his father. But apparently his father still let the townspeople beat him and tie him to wood boards. Was this how the heavenly Father disciplined us? Johannes thought Jesus was supposed to have been the perfect son.


Johannes slipped away into the night an hour later, confused but still thinking God was his only hope, for he knew not how to save himself. He could already feel his base impulses pushing over his weak resolves. He vied for alcohol to deal with such dread.


The next evening, as his drunk friends were slipping away, scheming and laughing into the darkening thoroughfares, Johannes saw a beggar slumped against a wall of the alley. The man was familiar to him, for this man's wall was one attached to the very church Johannes often snuck into. "Johannes!" One of his friends whispered and gestured to the man. "Do it!"


Johannes saw a pair of unguarded boots next to the sleeping beggar. His friend slipped away, leaving Johannes alone with the man. Johannes stepped close to the beggar, watching his drooping head. Johannes reached for the boots. He saw the man's eyes open and glance at Johannes, surprisingly agile. Johannes was startled and was only able to snag one boot and escape a few paces away. But in that moment he had noticed two things: the beggar's penetrating gaze, and the old silver cross around his neck. Johannes looked back and to his surprise the beggar lifted his other boot to him. Johannes was still for about 30 seconds, breathing hard, staring at the boot, the man's bearded face, and those light blue eyes. Eventually Johannes crept back to the man, just close enough to snatch the other boot, and slink away, out of the alley.


Johannes stumbled into the street, falling against walls from drunkenness a few times before he himself crumpled to the corner between a wall and a staircase. He examined the boots. Fine leather boots, though well-worn. Then he found old papers in one of the boots. He removed them, small slips of parchment with scribblings on them. Johannes wasn't great at reading but at the top of one paper were the words "Study on the Disciplines of Jesus" Then there was a list of scripture addresses and a few words after each. They read:


Luke 5:16- Jesus withdrew to lonely places and prayed

Luke 2- Jesus learned the scriptures

Luke 4- Jesus honored the sabbath and did good on it

Luke 6- Jesus gave of himself for the poor

Matthew 4- Jesus fasted


That certainly didn't sound as bad as being tied to boards, with a bloodied head, hands and knees: the discipline that the village would have of him.


Johannes didn't meet up with his friends again that night. He walked outside the city in those new boots, reading through the notes, thinking.


Johannes didn't know any scriptures, so as he walked he pondered only the scribbled words. He didn't know how to pray, so he started talking to the beggar as if he were there. "How does one pray, old man?" ... "What is the 'Sabbath'?" "How do you fast?" "How can I read or know the scriptures when I do not have them?"


And it was as he pondered this last question that his need grew. He resolved to seek out answers in the scriptures. Though he had never seen a book at the basilica before, he would try to search that night.


He thought he could perhaps resist his vices at least until that night. But he was shouted at by a guard as he snuck through the city gates, and then spit on by a market woman as she closed up her tent. So he treated the rejection with deep draws of beer he snuck from men who were not minding their drinks, and stole squeezes and kisses from from a prostitute friend who sometimes let him get away with such things. It nursed his pain, but he felt all the more helpless to his medicine.


Johannes showed up tipsy and picked the back door lock. He looked over and did not see the beggar whose boots he wore. His heart fell. He could still search for answers inside. He slipped inside the basilica and snuck through the dark forest of stone columns. It seemed he was alone, save the pale stretched out Jesus with its bloody parts. He approached the altar while avoiding Jesus's hanging gaze.


He had come for the discipline he deserved. Maybe he would find relief from the guilt. Perhaps it would be like that which befell Jesus. He certainly deserved some of that. Johannes would perhaps be willing to accept some of that discipline if it gave him a path away from this slow, lonely, descent into the pit his vices constantly lured him into.


He scanned the upper altar area for anything resembling a book. But only as his eyes crawled downward did he see a large gilded book, laying open on the railing on which he usually rested his elbows. The priest must have been reading it and forgotten it there.


Johannes stopped and looked around. He saw no one. So he cautiously approached. The book was opened to roughly the middle. The top of the page said "Isaiah." And there was a big number "53" drawn with flourishes in the top left of the page.


Johannes scanned the room one last time and only when he was confident that no one was watching, he knelt down to read. He diligently read for an hour by the moonlight coming through the stained glass.


"Who is this talking about?" He tried to look in the pages before and after, but this strange passage about a suffering savior seemed to be an island in a sea of nonsense. His attention kept coming back to one part. "But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities."


"Who is this talking about, old man?!" Johannes said out loud, as he pictured commanding this answer from the old beggar. Johannes looked around again, now wishing in a strange way the old beggar was there to answer him. But his eyes landed on the only pierced and battered thing in the room: the Jesus slung up and hanging on the crossed wooden bars."


Johannes now let his gaze creep up to the eyes of the bloody figure. He knew it was just a statue but that it represented a real man. Those eyes were in pain. "Did your father do this to you? Was this your discipline for being a perfect son?"


Johannes cocked his head to the side as he realized something. He looked back down at the page and then back at Jesus. He said, "No! You don't deserve my punishment. I must be disciplined to pay for what I've done wrong. Not you. No, no, no. This can't be right..."


Johannes turned around and spoke to the room, "Why was he punished for us?! That's not right. What father would let them do that?! I must be disciplined for MY wrongs!" He turned back around to the man on the crucifix, still with his palms petitioning the sky. "Please," He spoke to the figure, "Tell your father to discipline me." That was when he remembered the papers in his pocket. He pulled them out and read "The Disciplines of Jesus..."


Johannes saw the scripture addresses and his eyes drifted down to the open book in front of him. He began to thumb through the pages.


***

Johannes escaped just before dawn, having scoured the big book for any of the pages that matched the addresses on the papers. He dug around in them like digging for a treasure. He would let himself be fathered by any disciplines God had for him.


God's disciplines were not what he expected, at all. He expected punishment. But if these really were the "Disciplines of Jesus" they were vastly merciful.


Johannes did not understand how this discipline from a father would pay for his wrongs, but he was grateful that these were all he was asked to do. It appeared Jesus had taken the punishment for people like him, and all Johannes had to do was pray, study the scriptures, fast sometimes and take a rest once a week. It seemed there were a few other things, but for now Johannes trusted the study of "disciplines" made by the old man on the paper.


The next few days he tried to do some of these things. However, years of habit and continued rejection drew him to console himself with his old familiar vices. He couldn't seem to shake them; it was beyond his power. But now he knew that Jesus did not require that of him in order to come. Jesus had apparently taken his punishment. So Johannes kept sneaking into the basilica at night, finding the book laid open to a new passage each night, to see what Jesus said. He scoured the scriptures for answers about how he should live, like there he would find what he longed to hear. It began to feel like being fathered from a father who had been waiting for Johannes to come to Him.


Johannes even went to the basilica that Sunday to listen to the homily, this being part of what he assumed the Sabbath instructions meant. Beforehand he bathed in the river he had found on his walks outside the city. It ran through an orchard of apple trees. Then he put on his best clothes, and combed his hair. He slunk in the front door, for once. After the homily, as people were leaving he went to the front to look for the book. There were a few new questions he had and wanted to look for answers there before anyone saw him.


But when he went to the front the book was not where he had been finding it. The priest saw this inauspicious character looking for something, and approached him.


"What are you looking for?"


"Oh," Johannes turned around, avoiding the priest's look. "Nothing."


The priest jumped at him and clasped his elbow. "Tell me. What were you looking for?"


"Just the book that is usually here." When the judgmental grip grew stronger, Johannes wanted the solace he found in the book even more, so he said, "Do you know where I can read it?"


The priest looked suspiciously at him and pointed to the elevated perch he had been preaching from. It stays up there where only I read it. All other times it stays locked on the holy mantle. We only have one; it is very valuable. No one can read it but me."


"Oh, okay. Sorry." And Johannes tried to turn and tug out of the priest's grasp.


The priest did not let go. "You wouldn't know anything about the old beggar I found asleep in the balcony, would you?"


"Balcony?"


The priest nodded and pointed upward at the back of the basilica, where the organ was.


"He was asleep, kneeling there. He confessed he had broken the Bible from its sacred case and placed it down here on the chancel." He pointed at the railing Johannes had just been looking at. "I had him arrested."


"No," Johannes whispered. He looked up at the priest guiltily, hungry for answers. "He was kneeling?"


The priest nodded


"Why was he kneeling?"


The priest looked at him like it was obvious. "That's what people normally do in the church. But he wasn't praying, he was SLEEPING," he emphasized.


"Well, maybe that's because he had to pray for a long time for someone!" Johannes pulled away and walked quickly out the door into the blinding light.


***

Johannes looked for the beggar, peering into the jail yard and around the city for the next few days. Eventually he decided he needed to escape to the hills again to rest and try to pray.


But it was as he was leaving that he finally found the old man, slumping against the city wall outside the gates. The beggar had blood on his face and was still in bare feet. He was slumped, asleep against the wall in his usual rags. He no longer had his silver cross.


Johannes gazed at this man he had longed to talk to. He had not before felt drawn to know someone closely like he did at that minute, except for when one week earlier when he had started to feel this way about the character of Jesus.


Johannes cocked his head to the side as he bit his lips. He sniffed quietly, as not to wake him and turned around. He had to gather some thing in the hills.


That evening Johannes returned and knelt as he whispered to the man. "Old beggar. I have something for you. Old man, wake up."


The old man awoke and lifted his striking blue eyes to Johannes. A kind smile spread across the old man's face. He sat up and looked down at Johannes' hands. Johannes held out an apple, which the old man took gratefully. Then Johannes held out the old man's boots and said, "These are very good boots. Thank you for giving them to me, but they are yours." The man received the boots, seeing that Johannes had found his own old shoes to wear. Then Johannes held out the old paper notes. The old man smiled down at them but said, "How about we share those." He lifted his smile to Johannes anew as Johannes brought out his last gift.


"It looks like they have taken your silver cross." Johannes said. He had fashioned a small wooden cross from apple tree sticks and wove tiny reeds to make it a necklace. The man bowed his head. Johannes placed it over the old man's head. They shared a long look, two lonely souls finding a friend in the other. Johannes said, "I have so many questions."


The old man nodded, "Shall we walk to solitary places and pray?"


Johannes looked at him, questioning.


The old man replied, "Solitary means away from others. It's something Jesus did when he wanted to talk to his father."


"How did he talk to his father?"


The beggar nodded and said, "I'll show you. We can do it together."


***

One year later Johannes did not have time to sleuth around the night with his old friends. His time was spent walking through the hills, gathering apples, and making wooden crosses to sell. As he worked, he talked to his heavenly father, his friend the beggar, or a few new friends from the street who accompanied him. They were mostly orphan friends whom he had told about the disciplines of a good heavenly father.


He had decided that for him his fasting for 40 days meant no sex or alcohol. And throughout that time he learned he didn't need them like he thought. His need for those things seemed to diminish, anyway, as his friendship with the old beggar grew, and as the fresh air cleared his heart of the scorn he felt from their village. On Sundays he took a break from all of this and snuck into the back of the church for the homilies by the priest.


He didn't like the homilies much. The priest spoke like Jesus was judgmental. And the priest made it seem like God the father was just waiting to punish us if we misbehaved.


But Johannes knew they were different. Jesus was a friend who had taken all our punishment so we could be close to God who is better than any father we could have in this life. And the only thing God asked of us was to do a few things he called disciplines, but which didn't seem like any type of discipline at all.


Raw Spoon, June 19th, 2025

 
 
 

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These BLOGS are usually inspired by messages I (or friends) feel we have heard from God. This is the nature of our God. Listen for how he may be speaking to you.

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