The PARABLE of the SOOT STAINED MEDALLIONS

by Jim Hammond

The Devil was pleased after he lit the first fires of hell.  He lit them in the Garden of Eden.  Those around him couldn’t see the damage done immediately, but heaven could.  The fires of hell wrecked havoc on the Earth which was good, and clean, and holy.  The fires of hell left a sooty charred blackened darkened mess.  Only heaven could see all the damage because the worst damage was spiritual and eternal.  God had given each person a shiny medallion heart, glowing with his glorious reflected image. He had breathed on each of these medallions, and buffed them till they reflected his image perfectly, then he had placed them around the necks of his children hanging from a beautiful blue ribbon, suspending them just over their own beating hearts, saying  “As long as it is your desire to reflect my image, this medallion will guard you and guide you.”  When Satan lit the fires, people began turning away from God’s glory to counterfeits.  When they did, the medallion hearts grew hot with the fires of hell, so hot they burned the beautiful blue ribbon that connected them to people, and fell to the ground.  The same people tried to retrieve their fallen hearts, but burning their fingers on the hot metal, they left them to cool.  

Before they could be retrieved, however, the devil found them and snatched them, collecting the charred remains of these medallions as his little trophies.  He picked them up while they were still hot, being quite used to the heat.  He placed all these in a massive heap that he called his treasure heap.  He said to the people, “You won’t be needing your medallion now.  As you can see, it no longer has a reflection.  It is just as I told you before, you now know the difference between Good and Evil all by yourself, you don’t need God to tell you.  Now you know evil, and you know it personally and intimately.  You know it by experience.  you.  I lay claim to your medallions by rights of service because you have chosen to obey me.  You are my servants now.” 

People moved about the earth differently after their medallions were lost.  Their bodies still walked, and their mouths still talked, their minds still thought, but their hearts did not guide or glow with the beautiful reflection.  Death was a matter of time. 

The devil enjoyed revisiting his heart heap.  He looked up into heaven with a sneer,  “you see how many serve me and not you.  I’ve proved my point.”  But heaven was silent.  The bodies, the hands, the feet, they all marched to his orders, as long as he held custody of the blackened hearts.  The devil played in his pile of medallions, a crazed wealthy miser running his fingers through piles of his treasures, black soot filling the air.  The Devil laughed. 

There was not a shiny medallion left on earth.  The story could have ended with the natural results of a world left burning.  But it didn’t.

God sent his son into the charred world carrying the only shiny medallion on earth.  When he stepped into our world, the devil felt his world tremble.  White light had returned.  Where the world had only been dimly lit like a darkened fire place lit by glowing red coals, a new light, bright and white pierced the darkness.  When the devil looked to see what had happened he discovered clean tracks in the blackened paths.  Tracks of clean spaces in the dark world, and he was puzzled.  He followed the tracks to find light glowing ahead.  Silhouetted in the light was a figure of a man walking ahead of him.  When the devil got close the silhouetted figure turned.  Coming from his chest was a bright white light that hit the devil like a wall of light.  It came from the medallion on his chest.  The devil had to cower and shade his eyes.  The light was other worldly, different from the remnant fires still burning everywhere.  Quickly the devil reacted in a counter maneuver kicking piles of soot, creating a cloud of smoke to dim the light.  Though the light was dimmed one could see it still as light, real light, not a dim red glow.  The devil backed off. 

The Champion of heaven walked right up to the Devil’s lair and looked upon the heart heap.  He picked up a blackened medallion. 

The Devil watched from a distance, stunned.  What would he do?  Then Satan saw something that gave him hope.  The champion was obviously now changing.  He was getting dirty as he handled the dirty medallions.  Satan delighted at the thought.  The holy, clean, white, gleaming Champion of God was getting marked up with soot.  When the Champion picked up the medallions, smudges of soot left black marks on his hands.  God’s champion held a medallion turning it over in his hand.  He wept. 

His nose and eyes ran with the weeping, and with the soot getting into his eyes, he wept even more.  His pure lungs were filling with the soot coming off the heart pile, and from the earth’s atmosphere still burning with hell’s fires.  The Champion wiped his eyes to take a closer look at another medallion he picked up.  His faced was marred with the soot.  He looked ridiculous, like smeared mascara running down his face, then worse.  Satan smirked at the sight then gained enough courage to say,  “It’s mine, all mine now, in my world of soot.”  

The Champion ignored him completely and kept rubbing off the soot from the medallion he held.  He wiped it completely clean, but to do so the soot was getting all over him.  He was still crying, openly sobbing.  He wiped his nose and eyes.  Soot was all over him now.  He kept wiping medallions exposing the smooth golden metal beneath the black soot.  The son of man’s sobs soon were swallowed by his own choking and coughing.  He slowed down considerably.  It was as if he moved in slow motion, too weak to continue his task.

The Devil was tickled at the pathetic site.  He never dreamed he would see this day.  God’s Champion was growing dim.  The Champion’s medallion was turning black.  The devil delighted at the thought.  His own kingdom was growing with power, and God seemed small and dim and far away, the last glimmering reflection of glory was going out.  The white original light was growing dimmer and dimmer, disappearing as the world returned to its dull red glow.  God’s Champion was now weak and helpless to clean anything up.  Everything was getting blacker.  In fact, God himself was looking rather poorly in his image on earth.  Satan could hardly believe his plan had worked.  He was earth’s god now, there was no other.  He watched as the Image of God was breathing with labored gasps.  Weakened, the Champion fell face forward against the heart heap, hands still clutching and rubbing soot off the medallions next to his face.  Even in his last effort he exposed the smooth gold surface underneath the black layer so that gold color could show beneath the sooty mess. 

As he lay there motionless except for his labored breathing, soot falling from the fires began to pile upon him.  A black layer dropped on him as rapidly as if he was resting under a blackened chimney that was being cleaned out from above him.  Piles and piles of the blackened soot layered over him, layer upon layer.  He shook and gave one last effort, with a heave of movement he shook his half buried head and shouted, “FORGIVEN!”  He laid there fallen.  In a short time, he was completely buried in blackened ashes.  The blackened mound which had buried the Champion was motionless.  Stillness filled the air though fires continued to burn everywhere.  Satan held his breath.  Had he finally won?

Then the earth shook.  Lightening flashed through the sky, followed quickly by earsplitting cracks of thunder.  It began to rain.  Torrents of rain fell.  The soot was washing into pools of blackened water.  As Satan watched horrified, his fires were going out.  Streams of water began washing away the soot on the heart pile.  Rain was washing away the pile of soot over the buried heap of the crumpled body of God.  The sky was changing.  The red glow of the earth was being replaced by a brighter whiter light and that light was coming from the body of God.  He stood.  He was changed.  The glory of light was too much for the Devil to behold.  It was not merely reflected light coming from his medallion, it was the very glory of God, brighter than the sun.  Satan shielded his eyes, looked away, then fled the scene. 

The Champion picked up a medallion from the heart heap and held it in the rain.  It shined glimmering gold.  The rain stopped, and light broke through the black clouds.  Where he got it we do not know, but the Champion began drying the medallions with a white clean cloth.  He smiled as he admired each polished shiny medallion.  With the soot wiped away and the Champion looking into it.  Here is what he saw: a perfect reflection of his own image, the GLORY OF GOD. 

He walked over to one of the walking, talking bodies that had no heart, no life,  no soul, and asked if he would like a new heart.  To those who responded he held up the heart medallion breathing on it,  buffing it to shiny perfection, he placed it shiny and clean, over the disciple’s neck.  The shiny blue ribbon simply seemed to reappear when he breathed life upon the medallion.  The ones who received the medallions received it awkwardly as if embarrassed.  “We don’t deserve this”, they would say.  “We are not champions like you.”

“I give it not because you deserve it, but because you give yourself to the Champion who has won.  It is because you believe Me that I honor you with his honor.”  He tapped the medallion and said, “Now hanging over your heart is heaven’s reflection so don’t play in the soot.  Keep it clean”, he said.  “When you get smudged with the soot as you walk this world, make sure you come to me in confession, I’ll send the rain to wash you clean.  Don’t try to shine on your own.  Don’t begin to think you shine from within.  The light comes from me.  You must look to me.  Just come to me for cleansing and you will shine in reflection again.  In this world you will get dirty, but do not be troubled, I have overcome this world, and I have made you fit for the new world.  Help me clean the others.  There are many who are lost and few want a new heart, they enjoy the soot.  We have to teach them about the new world.  They have to learn that there is a better way.  They need to see the joy of what it means to be clean.  Until they see it, they will prefer the soot.  So, go, shine, shine like the stars of heaven.”  And with that last statement, suddenly, he was a glow of light too bright to look at directly, and his light kept going up, up, and up, till his light was the light of the SON!