The estimated seating capacity of the pews in the small church was two hundred and fifty. All were filled. The remainder of the visitors stood along the walls, beginning to the left of the sanctuary beside the organist, around the back of the church, and returning up to the point where a small railing stood guard before the tabernacle housing the Eucharist.
The church hadn’t even been this crowded at Easter last week. Faces the young priest recognized were wedged into the pews or forced to stand among a multitude of newcomers. People had come to learn the truth. To hear that they don't have to worry, that they can go about their usual business.
Since the rain began Friday, Nick barely had time to perform his regular duties, let alone eat a decent meal or get more than a few hours’ sleep. They sought him out as soon as the sun disappeared behind the clouds. Regular parishioners, long-absent Catholics, people from other denominations in town unable to locate their own pastors but driving by and seeing lights shining through the windows of the rectory office.
Everyone wanted to know the truth about the rain.
“Is this God's doing, Father?”
“Are we going to die, or just the sinners?”
“Does this mean Mrs. Carboneau is right? Should we sign up?”
As the world slowly dried, the sea of faces inside followed his slow progress from one side of the sanctuary to the other. Faces which expected their pastor to denounce recent events as trickery, as a sin upon those people wise enough to disregard a madwoman's ravings.
“Last week,” he said, “we celebrated the most holy of Christian holidays. Two thousand plus years ago, our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead and began His reign as high priest over all the world, over all our hearts. A perfect example of God's love for us, a perfect sacrifice.”
The microphone clipped to the collar of his robes carried his voice, even to the crowded crying room in the back of the church. “Yesterday,” he said quietly, “the rain stopped. The strange, magical rain that came from nowhere and went away just as quickly, was much like the human life of our Lord.” He stopped pacing. “All of us stepped from our homes and looked skyward, saw that our fears had been unfounded. The rains were gone. The danger had passed.”
The congregation stirred. Nick could tell they liked where his sermon was heading. “Many of you are here so I can tell you everything is over. The sirens have wound down; the air raid has ended.” He resumed pacing. “You want to hear that God was never behind this, that He wasn’t the one who sent the waters. That He would never inflict upon the world another Great Flood.”
He looked down only for a moment, to let any murmurings die away. “Well,” he said finally, “that’s true. He wouldn’t. He promised as much thousands of years ago, didn’t He? But the Earth itself made no such promise. It has cast the waters over the land before, destroyed cities with hurricanes, leveled towns with tornadoes. Such is the nature of our planet. Such is, well, nature. The Lord is not going to send a flood to the world.” Smiles, cautious looks of hope. Nick continued, “But the flood is coming. Not by His hand. He’s told this to his messengers. But by His hand, held out to us all,” at this Nick held out his own, palm up, “we could all be saved. Live another day, have a second chance.”
The smiles had dropped away, mouths opened in shock and fear. No turning back, he thought. No going home.
“According to Margaret Carboneau and so many others across the world, in thirty-eight days the flood will come and the world will be lost to us.” He raised his voice. “They tell us that on June eighth, we're all going to die unless we climb aboard one of these arks. Or unless we build one ourselves to God's specifications.
“Like you,” he pointed to a couple with two squirming children in the front row, “and you, all of you, I've had to witness these events unfolding and decide on faith, alone, whether I saw and heard an act of God or just a bunch of well-organized lunatics. I'm very, very sorry to say, my brothers and sisters in Christ, that lunatics, especially that many, are not so organized as to come out in public at the same moment and say the same thing. These people are not insane. They're normal people living mundane, spiritual lives. Others may have been sinners, perhaps even drug dealers, rapists, murderers. Who knows? One thing is for certain...”
He stood now between the two front pews. Those in the back craned their necks to see him. Nick lowered his voice again, fighting to remain calm and speak in a calm and natural voice, from his own heart and not some prefabricated evangelical tongue. “They are not crazy. They are not lying. Everything they're telling us is the truth.” He pointed behind him to the statue of Christ dying on the cross. “God's honest truth. The flood is coming. God wants us to live, and has given us a way to do just that.”
* * *
“Amen, amen, I say. Amen, God says.” Jack walked among the crowd, his motions jerky, like a beggar among the masses. His steps were uncertain, but his eyes, his gaze, pierced every heart he passed. People took an involuntary step back as he stumbled by them. But they listened. Oh, yes, he could see in their faces that they were listening. “For God himself has spoken, has shown all of you the way of your demise. Has warned us with these rains, that what He says through his prophet, which I utter to you now and forever is true. Amen, amen.”
He stopped, tried to remember the train of thought along which he'd been traveling. It was a good one, he knew that. He cursed his weak mind, his unworthiness to stand here and be the mouth of the Holy One.
The crowd sat wherever they could find a dry spot. Jack stood, motionless, now silent in their midst. He finally remembered what he was saying and resumed his sermon, his awkward gate punctuating the words.
“God does not pick and choose those he loves. The Lord Most High does not decide one man shall fall, while another shall live. We will all be with Him, in the glorious kingdom of light and love, if we fall to our knees and admit in silence and repentance the filth our lives have become. We must clean our souls and prepare for the day, soon, when He shall sweep His Mighty Arm across the world and gather our dead bodies up to him. He will burn the weeds, and pick the flowers. Repent now! Fall to your knees and beg Him to look down and see your shining light, before His gaze passes you by forever!”
He was shouting, waving his arms in random patterns - patterns he knew were guided by God's strings. Shreds of dirty white gauze, worked free from the plastic coating on his cast, sailed in the breeze as he moved.
A man in a business suit stood in front of him. He rolled his eyes when Jack looked at him, then walked away. Jack shouted after him but did not follow. “Do not turn your back to Heaven's word! There's so little time for you to be saved, for your soul to shine!”
To his glorious joy, he noticed a young man and woman deep in the crowd’s outer edges, fall to their knees and begin to pray. The sight, glimpsed through the restless bodies surrounding him, filled the preacher with energy. The Power of God. This Power slowly tore him apart, then rebuilt him as a stronger, more worthy child of the One Being.
He spun, smiled, and preached.
* * *
The parishioners of Holy Trinity in Arlington were restless this morning. Father McMillan stood behind the pulpit and spoke in a calm, reassuring voice. Unlike many of the younger priests emerging from the seminary these days, McMillan was not one to parade around the altar during his homily. Staying in one place allowed the people to focus, not be distracted from God's word as their priest wandered around like someone uncertain of what to do with himself.