THE UGLIEST MAN
By Rick Mathes
Two years after my Christian experience at age forty, word quickly spread about my previous life of alcoholism, drug addiction, promiscuity, violence and worse. One day I received a call from the team leader of a few seminary students that had been doing a weekly chapel service at the local county jail. They asked me to connect up with them and give my personal testimony at their next scheduled worship service. I reluctantly accepted and wasn’t too thrilled to be voluntarily going to jail! In my youth, I had been cuffed and locked down five times that I could remember. Being four locked gated deep in an all too familiar jail was not my idea of having a good time, but I would do it for my Jesus. So I went anyway and gave my testimony. The altar was overflowing with repentant prisoners seeking the forgiveness that only Jesus Christ can offer. I felt like I had put my finger into a 220 watt wall socket; an electrifying experience! I continued to frequent these weekly meetings and in time the students eventually graduated and scattered to all parts of the country, pastoring their respective churches. I was left alone and without new seminary students to replenish them.
That first jail service by myself made an unforgettable impression that would change the rest of my life up to this very moment!
The inmates began filing in and the chapel was swollen to overflowing. They were sitting in the aisles, on the steps and across the stage. The thought of a jail break slipped through my mind and maybe I was going to be taken hostage! Almost seventy street-hardened criminals were between me and the only exit from the chapel. Resigned to the task at hand, I had a message to preach. I did, and at the conclusion of the message my eyes were drawn to the last pew, the inside aisle seat closest to the door out. There sat the most ghastly looking convict I have ever seen.
He was like on of those neckless weight-lifters that are so muscle bound that they can’t even bend their arms to comb their hair. He was brown skinned with white splotches scattered about his face and arms. He looked like he had been randomly splashed with bleach or lye. His left eye was missing and you could see twitching beneath the sunken eye-lid. There was a poorly stitched scar that circled his throat from ear to ear and all his front teeth were missing except the two protruding eye teeth. Satan had taken him to hell and back.
Our eyes met in a steely stare with a serenity that suspended time. My blood ran cold as he deliberately got to his feet, kept eye contact and walked down the center aisle directly toward me. I was paralyzed with fear!
When he finally reached me he began to weep, dropping to his knees at my feet, sobbing as deeply as a man is able. I was dazed and startled at this turn of events. I cleared my head and witnessed a sinner seeking a Saviour. The sinner’s prayer ….. finally focused on my purpose …. Lead him to the foot of the Cross … Holding his ugly fact in my two hands, we began speaking in prayer and repentance together. Looking into his battle-raged face, something very extraordinary happened to me!
You can call it hallucination, drug flash-back, or a vivid imagination, but for me it was an unforgettable, supernatural vision.
I looked deep into his grotesque face and I saw the cherished face of Jesus looking back at me. His Word went through my veins like fire; “Whatever you do to these brethren of mine, even the least of them, you have done it to Me.” I was blessing Jesus!
PRESS ON!
Rick Mathes 