See Others with the Eyes of Christ

 I was honored to lead the funeral service of a wonderful servant of Christ, Rev. Felton Cox.  In preparing for that service, the family shared a story with me that illustrates how deeply heaven's poetry was etched upon Felton's life.  Felton saw others with the eyes of Christ.  

When the Cox family lived outside Fountain Inn and served the Bethany Baptist Church, one road connected the parsonage and church to school and town.  Each time the family drove down that road, they passed what you might call a joint, a place where drinking and gambling and many other destructive things happened daily.  That joint was so well known for the violence that broke out there that it earned the nickname, “The Bloody Bucket.”  Michael and Larry heard tall tales from their friends who lived close to that establishment of the things they’d seen and heard.  To Christian people in that community, the bucket was a place to avoid.  

One day, Felton was driving Larry home from baseball practice, coming down the road from the school ballfield toward the parsonage where they lived.  They were still some distance from home when Larry noticed that the car was slowing down.  The next thing he knew, Larry saw his dad turn into the driveway of the Bloody Bucket.  Felton turned off the engine and told Larry to wait in the car.  He wouldn’t be gone long.  Then, to Larry’s horror, his father the pastor walked into that den of iniquity.  After just a few minutes, Felton returned to the car and the two of them made their way home.  I don’t know how long it took Larry to muster the courage to ask Felton, “Dad, what did you do in there?”  “Well son, I walked in and asked those who were there if I could offer a prayer for them.  They were too surprised to say ‘no.’  After I prayed, I urged the group to give God a chance in their lives.  Then, I invited them to come to our church on Sunday.”  

Most people drove past the Bloody Bucket and saw temptations to escape, sinners to scorn, and bad influences to avoid.  Felton looked at that same place, those same people, and saw men and women Jesus died to save, strugglers who needed to know that they were born for better than the lives they knew because God loved them. I don’t suppose a 97-year-old man qualifies as an organ donor, but how I wish he could give us his eyes, eyes that saw others as people to love, not sinners to hate. Felton saw others with the eyes of Christ.