Just Like Sugarcane: Christian Pathos

Copyright © 2013 Dr. George H. Jackson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 (866) 928-1240

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4908-1673-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-1674-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013921019

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/15/2013

Contents

Dedication

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter1 You Will be Set on Fire

Chapter2 When You’re Cut Down

Chapter3 You Have to be Left Alone

Chapter4 You Will be Dragged

Chapter5 Crushed

Chapter6 Rise Again

Chapter7 Like Sugarcane

Chapter8 Like Board

Chapter9 No Gleaning in the Fields

Chapter11 Just Cane is Like Jesus Christ: J. C. vs. J. C.

Closing Remarks

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to the wonderful memory of my dear pastor and friend, Pastor Joslyn S. Beckford of the Christ temple Church.

To many you were a milestone; for me you are still a great part of my journey.

FOREWORD

Though this is his first published work, it reads like a classic in the modes of Philip Yancy and C.S. Lewis, who both mastered the art of taking the natural and painting a sublime picture of the pathos of a Christian.

A skilled writer puts words and phrases together that make you highlight them for future use or commit them to memory so that you’ll sound profound and clever. George Jackson has done so with expressions like a victim of your survival and the man in the fire is from the fire.

This author is an accomplished speaker, teacher, evangelist, and a sure-enough preacher. However, he has done what many orators cannot do, and that is to translate the verbal to the visual, on page that is. He loses nothing by writing his detailed revelations; in fact he gains more because of the opportunity to drill down into the details of an ever expanding thought.

This book will bless you even from the first page, and it grows and captivates, but most of all it illuminates!

Bishop Joel D. Trout

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To My Dear Wife,

The greatest decision I ever made for this side of life was marrying you. For late nights, early mornings, long days, and hard times, thank you for being my friend and the mother of all my children. You are a good person and the best one for me.

INTRODUCTION

Don’t be Fooled by the Greenery

Valuable lessons are often taught through things in our environment that were not initially meant to enlighten us to greater understanding. We learn from the cunning of a fox, the stealth of the lion, and the ingenuity of the bees as they make honey, of which they will never even know the price or the value of their product. Then there are so many things that were designed to teach us lessons directly that we often take for granted or just simply miss. We miss lessons sometimes because we are too young, or as they say too green. I am about to show you a lesson worth learning from a plant; it’s a western product mostly grown in the southern hemisphere. It’s a simple plant, harvested by hand and machine, that teaches a powerful lesson in disguise. Here is your lesson from the sugarcane.

Before the island of Jamaica had tourism as its major income source, there was bauxite: the mineral of pride that created jobs on top of jobs for the island. Trade between Jamaica and Russia for cars was a tangible concern as Jamaicans took pride in the wealth in the soil of the mountainside riches hidden deep in the greenery of St. Catherine’s curvaceous hills. But there was another type of greenery that had made the little island very productive. The acquired skills of plantation owners produced a commodity that had made the proud island self-sufficient for many years – and that’s sugarcane.

In the life of a believer, struggle and suffering are a part of the growth process, just as it is for sugarcane. I am going to show you the raising up of sugarcane: the process of its growth, the principle of its harvest and the process of its production. These three stages set the premise for a fine example of how Christians walk through and with the ordinances of an almighty God.

There is no way to subtract trial and hardship from your march toward perfection. It is impossible to avoid, nullify, or otherwise delete testing, temptations, or oppositions from your course. It is a trying path; there will be pressure, intense hardship, extreme suppression, and divine trouble that will require sacred thoughts, sublime help, and heavenly contact in order to make it to the end.

The wise man Solomon addresses his youthful audience by using the term young man, as in, Young man I call upon you for you are strong. The Hebrew word, young used in western civilization, means inexperienced, ignorant, and green. We miss most of the reason for the admonition because the word strong is injected into the statement. In other words, he was not writing to him because he was strong, but because he was young and the problem is that to be inexperienced, ignorant, and green is a weakness. So Solomon is here attempting to strengthen the strong, young (though weak, inexperienced, and ignorant) man. In other words, don’t let the green fool you; just because you’re young, just because you’re strong, it doesn’t mean you’re in no need of a lesson. The sugarcane is about to learn a lesson; it’s about to go through, and while it may be green now, it will have to turn black, then brown, and then finally turn into trash before its process is finished.

There is great similarity between the sugarcane and the child of God. In his profound book, On the Anvil, Max Lucado writes, The child of God is like a piece of tool in the blacksmith’s shop, covered with the dust, behind the cobweb, in the dark, waiting to be touched by the master’s hand.

Just like sugarcane, your time is in God’s hand and your field has been prepared. The soil in which you now grow is designed to make you thrive with excellence, to grow to your maximum potential. The distance between you and the next cane is perfect; for while you sway in the wind and your upper lush greenery touches other sugarcane plants, the space in which you have existed is just for your outreached roots to support your position. Nobody can take your space; while all sugarcane looks just like you, your space is your space. You’re tightly fitted together as a field and your green combined with the green of others looks good for uniformity. There are rows of gutters running far and long beside you to supply water for all the sugarcane plants.

But while you bask in your freedom to be you, I must warn you, there is a reason you have been raised right; there is a reason you’re lush and green; there is a reason you’re solid, firm, tall and straight. While you’re outstandingly radiant in your exclusive beauty, accompanied by many other sugarcane plants as pretty as yourself, there is a reason for your very existence:

1. You will be set on fire

2. You will be cut down

3. You will be left alone

4. You will be dragged

5. You will be crushed

6. You will rise again

7. You will be productive and multiply

CHAPTER1

You Will be Set on Fire

T he beauty of Christendom’s majestic Jesus the Christ is captured by his dual position between Heaven and earth, as He is the homogeny between the two: He was sent to talk to man on behalf of God, but speaks to God on man’s behalf. As grandiloquent as Jesus was, God sets him before humanity as the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Filling seven son-ships and countless names and titles attached to his character and person ality:

1. Son of God

2. Son of man

3. Son over his own house

4. Son of a woman

5. Son of Abraham

6. Son of David

7. Son of Joseph

Yet he was burned by the fires of life to reach his purpose by the rigors of human unbelief and tried by the critical comments of people He was among. He was challenged by the doubts of society concerning his integrity; these are the heat, smoke, fire, and ashes of life.

What burns more than being doubted, being lied on, accused wrongfully, despised, rejected, esteemed not, tried and found guilty innocently, spat on, and condemned to die by people less than one self? For puny humans placed him on trial and gave him a cross to carry up a hill as payment after being good to all the people He came in contact with. As a root out of a dry ground and a tender plant (Isaiah 53:2), Jesus the Christ was like sugarcane, sweet but set on fire through a process that will end in admirable productivity.

Sugarcane is the world’s largest crop and accounts for some eighty percent of the world’s sugar production; it is grown on alluvial lands, in deep soil and requires much space. There are two schools of thought when it comes to alluvial lands: you either prepare the ground with gutters running with access to a constant supply of water, or you just simply plant the crop in or close to swamp lands. Here is a plant that personifies the life of Christ, and the times and life of a Christian believer, for it carries in its growth and process the rigors, the principles, and procedures of transforming good to better, and on its way to best. Now remember this God cannot get better; He is always at his best, He cannot grow or improve. You cannot add anything to God and still have him as God, neither can you take anything from God and have any God left; He is intrinsic, only God can be God. But in the case of his son the Christ, Luke 2:52 states He grew in wisdom, stature and in favor with man and with God. In other words, He grew intellectually, spiritually, and socially. This growth however, came through much pain as a result of him coming through life as a man (human). No, you’re not suffering because of the family you were born in, the level of your education, or the position you hold in life; you simply suffer because you came through this life. Nobody escapes the trials of life, nobody evades the vicissitudes of reality; you are going to get burned.

Just like sugarcane, we go through an intensive process to reach our final state: it is grown, it gets burned, then it’s cut down, spends time down and out, then it is transported and dragged to a designated place where it is crushed to trash, and finally, all of its juices are extracted and set apart. You can imagine how the cane feels after once blowing in the wind in lush greenery, it now has its juices drained through immense pressure and may question, Why am I forsaken? This is just how Jesus felt in his last hour on the cross. However, in his victorious resurrection, Christ produced the finest byproducts of Christianity, saints, believers, and followers. Even sugarcane, in its downfall and uprising produces sugar, rum, molasses, ethanol, falernum (a sweet syrup used in Caribbean and tropical drinks), and bagasses (the fibrous material that remains after sugarcane is crushed).

The lush greenery of sugarcane is set ablaze strategically to halt its life, but eventually it will bring greater things from the pain encountered in the process. As Christ was:

Doubted: He came to his own but his own received him not (John 1:11)

Used: fed thousands that never committed to him

Accused: called a false prophet

Sold out: for thirty pieces of silver

Lied on/Condemned/Spat on/Laughed at:

nothing holds more piercing ridicule than being laughed at while being condemned

Wounded: beatings, scourging of whips and the piercing of sword caused: laceration wounds, incisions, penetrating wounds, contusions, and perforating wounds

Just like sugarcane and Christ, you will experience the power of cleansing trials that come with obeying the Word of God in preparation for the joy you will encounter in your future: Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame (Hebrews 12:2 KJV). You too must disregard much suffering and endure some pain in order to see the fulfilling of your planned, divine future.

The Man in the Fire is from the