, “It is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread….”
A missionary to Africa watched a black ant crawl up a table leg.
The purpose of the sacrament of confirmation which is administered to Orthodox Christians at Baptism is to make Pentecost personal to us. We are given the Holy Spirit, as were the apostles at Pentecost, to equip us for the task of acknowledging and confessing Christ’s name before the world. We are especially anointed for this task.
Acknowledging Christ before others is not something for which one needs a theological education. D.T. Niles said, “It is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread. We do not need to badger or hound people. We simply share the story of what Jesus Christ has done for us.” This is the meaning of the Greek word martyr “Martyrs”: to share with others what we have seen and experienced. This is exactly what the Samaritan woman did after she met Jesus at the well. She ran back home and told her townspeople about what Jesus had told her.
A missionary to Africa watched a black ant crawl up a table leg and onto the table to some sugar that had been spilled there. It ate its desire, crawled back down the table leg, and disappeared. Soon two more black ants crawled up the table leg to the spilled sugar. They ate and left. Moments later there was a steady stream of black ants crawling up the table leg, for the sugar. One had to summarize that through their communication system, one ant had communicated to others and said, “I have found something good, and I want to share it with you.” Is not this what acknowledging Christ before the world means?
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