This past Sunday at Chapin Christian the Reverend Doctor Jeffrey Dunn preached a powerful sermon using an amazing allegory he had written. The passage of scripture it’s based on is John 3:29-30 [John the Baptist as the Best Man of Jesus the Bridegroom]:
“The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less.”
Some have asked for Jeff’s story — here it is — be blessed!
The Bracelet
Jonathan had loved and adored Julia since they were children. Long before she even noticed him, he gave her his constant attention. Watching her sit on the steps of her childhood home, talking to her little dog Andy, he noticed Andy cocking his head and lifting his ear as if hanging on her every word. He noticed her smile and blush when her father would touch her nose with the tip of his finger and tell her she was a cute as a button. He saw the sparkle in her eyes as she danced in her recitals. And he also saw tears well in her eyes as she picked up her books that had been knocked to the ground by a bully.
As she grew into a young woman, he saw the beautiful pictures she sketched in her notebook and heard her speak of her dream of attending a prestigious college of art and design. He also knew that she had never shared this dream with her mother, because her father’s illness and death had left them deeply in debt, and she didn’t want her mom to feel bad about not being able to support her dream.
For these and a thousand other reasons, he loved her with his whole heart and dreamed of one day being her devoted husband. He had asked his best friend, Russell, who had grown up with him and Julia, to be his best man in their wedding when they were still in Jr. High School, years before Julia would even know that Jonathan was in love with her.
Jonathan prepared to reveal his love for Julia on her 18th birthday. His love was to be revealed in a gift, a charm bracelet that he had been preparing to give to her for years. It was filled with tiny mementoes of a lifetime of love, like a little dog with one ear turned upward, a cute little gold button, a tiny ballerina and a miniature diploma embossed with the art school logo.
Jonathan had sold his most prized possessions to pay for the bracelet and emptied his own college savings account to anonymously pay her first year’s tuition.
Because Jonathan was being deployed to Afghanistan in the summer of Julia’s 18th birthday and he would have little to no communication during that time, he had entrusted Julia’s gift to his best friend, Russell, who was to give it to her with the simple message, “This is from Jonathan. He loves you very much.”
When her birthday came, Russell sat beside Julia on a park bench where they agreed to meet. She was happy to see him because, through Jonathan, Russell had become a trusted friend of hers as well. After a friendly hug and lively conversation about her birthday plans, Russell pulled the gift from his jacket and held it out to her.
She smiled broadly as she slipped the ribbon and bow from around the box and lifted the lid.
Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open as she lifted the bracelet from the box. One by one, she lifted the charms; the ballerina, the diploma… Each charm brought precious memories and powerful emotions.
She touched the little dog’s listening ear and quietly said, “Andy”. When she came to the little gold button, she spoke the memory of her father’s words, “Cute as a button.”
She looked up at Russell, the button still resting on her finger. Tears pooled in her eyes as she looked at him with a depth of admiration and gratitude that no one had ever shown him before. “How did you know? … How did you remember?”
Julia looked deeply into Russells eyes for a long moment and Russel held her gaze, mesmerized by an affection from her (and for her) that, until that moment, he never knew existed.
Realizing that Julia thought the gift was from him, he searched for the words to tell her that he was only delivering the gift from Jonathan, but he could not find them.
She was obviously deeply moved by what she thought to be his care for her, and he didn’t want to hurt her feelings by making it sound as though he did not care about her personally. The truth was that he really did care for her. He didn’t realize how much until he saw her scroll through the memories of Jonathan’s gift.
If he told her right then that the gift was not from him, it would surely embarrass her, so when she said, “This is the best gift that anyone has ever given me!” Russell stumbled into the words, “I.. um.. I’m glad you like it.”
And when she leaned over and softly touched her lips to his cheek and the corner of his mouth, he reminded himself to breath and then told himself that he would tell her the truth in a day or two.
The days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months. When fall enrollment came, Russell knew that Julia thought that both the diploma charm and the art school tuition were from him, but he couldn’t muster the courage to tell her otherwise, so her affection and admiration for Russell continued to grow.
In a letter to Jonathan, Russell assured him that Julia loved the gift and was doing well. He allayed his crushing guilt by rationalizing that he was just safeguarding Julia’s affection until Jonathan’s return. He always spoke well of Johathan when talking with Julia. He really did want Julia to love Jonathan, but he couldn’t bear to lose the love and admiration he felt from her by breaking her illusion that the bracelet was from him.
The Truth
The illusion, however, began to break on its own. Russell simply did not possess the kind of love that Jonathan expressed in that bracelet. Though Russell had given it to her and knew the meaning of every charm, the love captured in that bracelet was Jonathan’s love and not his own. He could never maintain the illusion, because he could never love Julia the way that Jonathan loved her.
One day Russell noticed her gently rolling the charms between her fingers as she sat lost in her own thoughts. After a long silence, she asked simply, “Where did it go?”
“Where did what go?” he asked.
“Your love for me.” She answered. “Every charm on this bracelet tells me that I had your heart. I had your attention. You understood me, and you loved me! But now…” she said, drawing her fingers away from the bracelet, “it feels like you don’t even see me.”
Those words were like a battering ram crashing through the facade of Russells pretense, and suddenly he found not only the courage to tell the truth, but a conviction that would allow him to do nothing else.
“It wasn’t from me.”
There, he had done it. He had said what he should have said on the day he gave the gift to Julia, and ten thousand pounds lifted from his shoulders!
“What wasn’t from you?” “The Bracelet”
“What do you mean, ‘It wasn’t from you.’?”
“It wasn’t from me…. It was from Jonathan.” “Jonathan asked me to bring it to you.”
“He wanted me to give it to you… and to tell you that he loves you very much.”
“It’s all from Jonathan. The bracelet, the memories, the attention, the caring, the money for
college. It’s all from him!”
Julia just sat there… stunned.
“I didn’t plan to deceive you.” Russell explained, his voice pleading, “I went to the park fully intending to give you his gift and tell you that he loves you.”
“But when you opened it… and you looked at me…”
“I don’t even know how to explain it. I just… couldn’t…
“The way you looked at me… Nobody has ever looked at me like that before.” He paused, remembering the feeling.
“Even though I knew that what I felt from you was a response to his gift, his heart, his love, not mine, it felt so good that I wanted to keep feeling it… for just a little bit longer.”
“But the longer I felt it, the more I wanted it.”
“I kept telling myself that I’d fix it… that I’d tell you later.” “But the longer it went… the harder it got….
“I’m so sorry.”
“I can’t believe I did that to you.”
“I can’t believe I did that to Jonathan!”
“He has always loved you, Julia! The love you see in that bracelet, I have seen in him and heard from him from the time we were kids. I have never seen anyone love someone the way that he loves you.”
Julie thought about Russell’s assertion for a long time, but then she objected. “I don’t know Russell. I think you have seen that kind of love before.”
“No, not like he loves you, Julia”
“How about the way he has always loved YOU Russell?”
Russell didn’t see it coming. It was like a tsunami hit him from behind and before he knew it, an overwhelming wave of guilt and remorse overcame him and heard himself crying.
A flood of memories filled his mind, reminding him of the extraordinary and unmerited love that Johathan had shown him throughout his life. Jonathan had befriended him, supported him, defended him, challenged him, inspired him, protected him, encouraged him and though he did not earn it and certainly didn’t deserve it, he had TRUSTED him. And the realization of how terribly he had violated that trust wrecked him.
The Confession
Russells confession to Jonathan was heart wrenching. Jonathan was on a short leave and had sent Russell a plane ticket to meet him in Dubai. When he hugged Jonathan in the airport, he felt like Judas as he betrayed Jesus with a kiss. When they sat to talk, he started out trying to explain himself but ended up in a hemorrhaging confession with no excuses, only heart shredding honesty and repentance.
Johathan was a powerful man. In fact, he was the strongest man that Russell had ever known, and a scene had played in Russell’s imagination of Johathan giving him the beating he deserved right there in the airport concourse. But Jonathan was also the strongest man he
had ever know mentally, emotionally and spiritually, and somehow that knowledge gave him confidence that he could tell Jonathan the truth without fearing a beat down. He did fear, however, that the powerful bond of friendship that he had shared with Jonathan was lost forever.
To his surprise and amazement, Jonathan did not respond to Russells confession with fury and indignation. Though he was obviously cut to the core by what Russell had done, there was a tone of compassion in his voice as he responded.
“I knew it before you told me Russell.” Russell blinked, “How?
“A couple of weeks after her birthday, I received a letter from Julia.
She told me that her birthday had been wonderful and that she had received the best gift ever, but she wanted to show it to me and tell me all about it when I got home. It was clear that she had no idea it was from me.”
“I’m not goanna lie Russell, I was angry, but I figured there had to be a good reason for why you hadn’t told her. I just couldn’t understand why you had not told me that she didn’t know.”
“It didn’t make sense until I got to the end of her letter. She ended it by telling me that she wanted me to be the first to know that she thought she might be falling in love.”
Russell’s head fell in utter disgrace as his heart broke for Jonathan and what he had done to him. He couldn’t even look at him.
Jonathan continued. “Even without her letter, I would have known it from your letters Russell. They were so formal and evasive. It was like I was getting letters from my accountant, not my best friend. Then, when we were finally able to talk on the phone, it was so stinking awkward and distant. It was obvious you were keeping something from me.”
“I’m sorry Johathan.” Russel said, still looking down. “I am so very sorry.”
Finding the courage and humility to lift his eyes to meet Jonathan’s, he expected them to be filled with anger and disgust; but instead, what he saw in Jonathan’s eyes was grace and understanding, and to his utter astonishment, love.
Seeing that love in Jonathan’s eyes, Russell wanted nothing more in all the world than for Julia to know the true depth of Jonathan’s love for her and for her to love Jonathan with every ounce of her being! And he knew, in that moment, that he would spend the rest of his life doing
anything and everything in his power to protect and honor that love!
The One
When Jonathan returned from deployment, Julia asked him to meet her at the park, the one where she and Russell had met on her birthday.
When they were face to face, she didn’t rush to speak. She just stood there… looking at him.
Not the way she had before.
This time, it was like something had come into focus.
“It was you Jonathan. It has always been you!”
She gently held the bracelet, strolling her fingers across the charms. She studied it as she spoke.
“When I opened this bracelet, it was like opening my heart.”
“Every charm touched a place in my life, in my heart, in my soul. I felt seen…understood… cherished…. I felt loved!
She paused, then continued.
“My heart responded with a overpowering love, affection, and admiration for someone who
would love me like that.”
“I thought that someone was Russell, and I thought for a moment that I was falling in love with him.”
She clasped the bracelet in her fist and slowly shook it as she continued.
“But somewhere deep inside I knew that something didn’t fit. I didn’t see the same love in Russell that I saw in this bracelet.”
She looked into his eyes. “And now it makes perfect sense!” “It was you!”
“When I think back over my life, it has always been you!”
“…You carried my books home from school…You stood up for me when kids bullied me…”
The memories came easily, like picking a handful of daisies from a meadow fill with thousands.
“You checked on me when I was sick… When my dad died you sat with me for hours…for days… You were there for all my recitals… those long, painful, boring recitals.” (she said with grin and a wink).
“You loved me, Jonathan.”
“For my whole life… you have loved me!”
She slipped the charm bracelet on to her wrist before reaching up to take his face in her hands and look deep in his eyes.
All of the admiration, affection, gratitude and love that had filled her eyes on her birthday now fell on the one to whom they belonged.
“You know when I wrote you after my birthday and told you that I thought I might be falling in love?”
“Well I WAS falling in love, but not with Russell.”
“I was falling in love with the one who saw me… the one who knew me… the one who loved
me… I was falling in love with you!”
The Ring
When the day of their wedding came, the bracelet fell gracefully on Julia’s hand as she held it out for Jonathan to put the ring on her finger.
When Johathan held out his hand to retrieve the wedding band, it was placed reverently and securely in his palm by his best man… Russell.
— by Jeffrey Dunn
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