Week 7 Day 5 Devotions
A Coat for Christ
“The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.” Luke 3:11
It was a wild, wintry night. The temperature had dived to a polar position. Winds rose in shrieking crescendos and lashed the country with lethal blasts. But the Czar's interests must be protected. A Russian soldier must patrol between two sentry boxes even on such a night. Poorly clad, the miserable man marched from one post
to the other, shivering and chilled. Then it began to snow. Before long the hills which surrounded that frozen, forsaken place were covered with snow. The sentry was wrapped in the vicious embrace of a fierce, freezing blizzard. Then a poor peasant happened to pass nearby on his way home. Answering the soldier's challenge, he identified himself and secured permission to proceed. But the peasant pitied the sentry. "You are cold and must patrol all night," he said kindly. "I am only a short distance from my cottage. Here, wear my coat tonight. You can return it to me in the morning."
The soldier gladly accepted the proffered wrap. But even the heavy borrowed coat could not keep out the cold which seeped through the sentry like poison. No wrap seemed warm enough on that night to fend off the icy fingers of death. The next morning his comrades discovered the soldier frozen in the field. The peasant never recovered his coat. But he did see it again. A long time afterwards, when the peasant himself lay on his deathbed, he dreamed that Jesus appeared to him. "You are wearing my coat, Lord," the dying man said, recognizing the wrap he had loaned to the sentry. "Yes," answered Jesus. "This is the coat you loaned to me that frightful night when I was on duty and you passed by." "But Lord," objected the peasant, "You were not that soldier!" "No," replied Jesus in the dream. "But inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto me. I was naked and ye clothed me!" (Author Unknown)
Then let us attend
Our heavenly friend
In his members distressed,
By want, or affliction, or sickness oppressed;
The prisoner relieve,
The stranger receive,
Supply all their wants,
And spend and be spent in assisting his saints. (482)
