One day, a group of miners was sitting in their lunch room a couple thousand feet underground enjoying their mid-shift meal and their usual, colorful banter. “Jesus Christ!” exclaimed one of the miners in response to another.
Suddenly, Jesus Himself appeared before them. “Yes?” he asked quietly, “What would you like?” Stone silence. “God almighty!” stammered another miner. Jesus turned slowly to the man, “Yes?” By this time, all mouths were gaping open and all eyes were fixed on Jesus.
Breaking the silence and taking a seat, Jesus finally said, “Let me tell you guys a story. A good story...which will be a rarity around here. Everyone likes a good story, right?” A few of the miners managed to nod their heads, and close their mouths.
“Well, the kingdom of God is like a miner,” began Jesus. “He went to work one day and started blasting huge chunks of nickel ore out of the earth. It was a painful experience for the ore to get extracted that way, but necessary to recover the precious metal within. It was fairly easy to get the big ore chunks out of the rock face. It was going to be a much longer process to get the rock separated from the precious metal.”
Suddenly, the lunch room door swung open and another miner walked in. “Come join us Jack,” said Jesus, “I’m telling the guys here a story.” “Who’s the new guy?” asked Jack, “And how did he know my….” “Just siddown and shuddup,” said his shift mate as he pulled him to an empty chair.
“And so,” Jesus continued with a faint smile on his lips, “The miner sent the ore chunks down a conveyor to the crusher which broke up the big pieces into much smaller ones. This too was a painful experience for the ore to get so forcefully ground up, but again it was necessary if something of value was to be produced.”
The miners were listening intently fully understanding what Jesus was talking about. After all, this was their bread and butter. Talking of which, the bologna sandwiches, pickles and coffee cups had lain untouched on the table since Jesus began speaking.
Listen, my friends, this is the meaning of my story
“Well, as you know,” said Jesus, “The next step was to send the crushed ore to the smelter where intense heat is applied. So intense, in fact, that the ore actually melts causing the impurities to float to the top. This process is obviously very painful for the raw material as it’s being smelted in the super-charged furnace.”
“A skilled miner skims off the impurities until nothing is left but the pure and precious metal itself. He knows the process is complete when he can look into the molten metal and see his own image.”
Jesus then looked around the lunchroom table quietly but intently at all the staring faces. “Listen, my friends, this is the meaning of my story. You are the nickel ore and I am the miner. There is something very precious in each one of you. It’s your soul. It will not be an easy or painless process for you to realize what’s really important in life. But I will take you through each painful step of honest self-evaluation and soul-searching. You will be extracted, crushed and refined but at the end, you will reflect Me and My likeness and not where you came from.”
At that moment, Jesus disappeared, as suddenly as He had arrived. The miners looked at each other in stunned silence until, slowly, one by one they picked up their lunch pails and returned to their workplaces.
Each miner’s life was changed that day. And, curiously, the name of Jesus was never again invoked in an unworthy way.
Rob Weatherby is a retired pastor.
