Once In My Life

I’m ashamed to say I only did this once.

I felt too afraid to do it again.

I’m sorry.

One time, years ago, I went to a notorious biker bar after midnight and presented a message about Jesus Christ to a rough gang of people in the parking lot.

This gang attracted my attention because one night the week before I’d been working in the area for the mosquito control board and a bunch of them threw beer bottles at me. This outraged me and I thought, “Somebody ought to tell these hooligans about Jesus”.

In my experience, anytime I think “Somebody ought to…” that means the Holy Spirit is saying, “John Cowart, you ought to…”

Whoa!

That can’t be right—Can it?

You’d have to be crazy to go into a bunch of beer swizzling, knife fighting, chain swinging, bottle throwing, bike riding, leather wearing toughs and try to present the Gospel…

I consulted some other zealous, witnessing Christians recruiting them to go with me. They agreed to meet me at a nearby restaurant at midnight and we’d all go over the biker bar together.

Ha.

Come midnight, not a single Christian witness showed up at the restaurant.

I waited and waited.

Obviously, the Lord would not want me to venture out there by myself.

In the recesses of my mind, the Spirit said, “Who will go for Me”?

Doesn’t the Spirit ever notice that being a Christian might get you killed?

Now back in those days, I engaged in an unusual hobby. I worked most nights but on my days off, I’d go out in city parks with an easel and poster paints. I’d paint little stick-figure drawings which told Bible stories. I’d never say a word till some passersby would gather and someone would ask me I was doing. That gave me the opening to tell the Bible story and offer folks a chance to think about Jesus.

From about 1974, here’s a photo of me (notice the long proud red beard of my youth) one day when I was telling For Mature Adults, the story of David and Bathsheba (see her in the bathtub?), to a group of passersby in a St. Augustine park :

Well, the night I’m talking about I carried my easel to the biker bar parking lot, set up under a streetlamp in a far corner, and began to paint.

A skimpily-clad young lady strolled over and asked, “What the hell are you doing”?

“Painting a picture to tell a Bible story,” I replied.

The bar was closing and a bunch of guys and gals congregated at the entrance; the girl who’d asked me about the painting yelled, “Hey! Something’s going on. Come take a look at this”!

I cringed.

These bar people had thrown bottles at me the week before.

About 20 people gathered to watch and listen. One biker complained there was not enough light to see the painting, so three of them wheeled their motorcycles over and shown their headlights on my easel. I told the parable about the Lost Treasure, David & Bathsheba, the Frog Prince fairytale, and some other stuff.

One guy said, “You know, my grandmother used to talk like that”.

Another said he’d heard such stories before.

Another said he was into Zen.

Given that opening, I asked if we could go around the circle and each person tell about his or her own spiritual experience.

And they did!

We talked till dawn.

And they asked me to come back again the next Saturday night.

But I didn’t.

I felt too afraid.

Oh I kept practicing my hobby—but in safe places: among tourists on the Riverwalk, to kids in the park, to bikini girls on the beach, to drunks at the mission—but I never went back to that biker bar.

I remembered this incident while I worked in my garden yesterday because, as I raked, I was thinking about a mean-looking, tattooed biker I’d seen in a BBQ restaurant last week and I thought about spiritual hunger among such people.

King Solomon said that God has made everything beautiful in its time and He hath place a strong desire for Eternity in the hearts of men. Every person—biker and beauty queen, accountant and astronaut, executive and plumber—Every person feels a longing for Eternity, for something, for Someone beyond ourselves.

We can not feed on this land’s bread.

We know something’s missing.

We yearn for Home.

In our wildest—or most subtle—rebellion against God, we yet feel drawn.

Longing possesses our heart.

Desire for God.

Nothing less satisfies us.

Every one of us.

The person I think will not be interested. The person I fear. The sophisticate. The professor. The degenerate. The banker. The biker. The apathetic. The indifferent…

On some level, they await our witness.

Jesus said, “Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”.

Heavy laden with anxiety, laden with problems, with guilt, laden with ambition, laden with temptations, laden with worries, with troubles, with whatever.

Only He gives rest.

Only He gives peace.

He offers salvation to the undeserving.

And Jesus also said, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me”.

This he said, signifying what death he should die, but in another sense, lifting up Christ is one main job of a Christian.

I sometimes wish I’d gone back to that bar again.

But, I was afraid.