SUNDAY: Bible Study - 9:00 AM | Worship - 10:00 AM | PM Worship - 6:00 PM WEDNESDAY: Bible Class - 7:00 PM ~ 8110 Signal Hill Road Manassas, Virginia | Office Phone: 703.368.2622

gypsyfuneralzt81            On November 21, 1931, the passing of Zeke Marks was noted in the Weirton (WV) Daily Times.  He was 75 years old, a father of 9, a short man with a drooping mustache who had died of bronchial pneumonia.  His obituary would ordinarily have been placed in the back section of the newspaper – but it wasn’t.  It made the front page – because Zeke Marks was the Gypsy King.¹
                More than 10,000 Gypsies flooded Weirton, West Virginia for his funeral observance.  They came from all over the county, and a small West Virginia town that knew little of Gypsy culture beyond fortune-telling and wagon trains got a rare glimpse into their secret world.
            Zeke Marks was placed, unembalmed and unkempt, in a bronze casket.  His feet were bound, lest he rise from the dead and wander away.  His mouth was tied with a red bandanna lest he rise from the dead and reveal their secrets.  In one hand he clutched a $5 gold coin – his fee for safe passage across the river Styx.  Under the other arm was a jug of wine from which mourners swigged as they passed by.
            All his earthly belongings were placed at his feet.  Prominently displayed among them were four paid bills – for a cemetery plot, vault, monument, and suit of clothes.  The purpose fo this display was to show “he leaves this world a square man”.
            We do not scruple at debts the way past generations have.  I once read a book of letters – just common letters exchanged between common people in Victorian England.  I don’t recall the name of the book, but I do recall a phrase from it rather clearly.  It was a letter of proposal from a prosperous farmer to a parson’s daughter.  The farmer recommended himself as a man “who owed no man a shilling and would ask no man a shilling”.  Certainly the WWII generation left their children a greater financial legacy than this financially encumbered generation will leave our offspring.
            Doubtless, we would do better if we saved more and borrowed less.  Usury, (interest) we should remember, was condemned by God in Mosaic Law (Leviticus 25.36).  This said, I say further that none of us will, of ourselves, leave this world “a square man (or woman)”.
            “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6.23a).
            Each sin receives as payment death.  If you or I could live our lives and sin only once, theoretically, we could give our lives for it, and be saved.  But the single-sin life is just that – theory.  I venture to say that the single-sin day (or single sin hour?) is theory.  And so we amass a great debt – with no means of payment.  As the soap-opera posits, we have but “on life to live”.
            Fortunately, Jesus, the King of kings died that I could leave this world, “a square man”.
            “The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6.23b).
            Despite all the plans we make for those we will leave behind one day, we are, of ourselves, powerless to do the one thing that will “square” us, and give them the comfort of our being “square”.  But in Christ…
            In Christ, we are “square”.
            As we celebrate our King’s death (and resurrection) each Lord’s day – is not the adducing and tallying of our debt paid, of our being made “square” by Christ the measure of our “discerning appropriately his body” and “examining ourselves” (1 Corinthians 11.22).
            Will we remain “square” if we forget?  Can one who is “walking in the light” ever forget?
            Will one capable of forgetting continue to be “cleansed” by His blood (1 John 1.7)…
            Would such a one (could such a one) continue to be “Square”?
                                                                       

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