My teammate’s exposition both shook me and left me silent. At that moment, while stricken with grief and shock, I had no clue what the verse would mean to me throughout my life. That was the first time I remember hearing John 3:16. “Jarvis, this is what life is all about,” he said. One of them, a Christian like Merri Kathryn, turned the pages of a pew Bible to John 3:16, and he slowly began to read the verse to me. I remember sitting down in a pew in the pristine sanctuary of Hindman First Baptist Church with my teammates. There, her pastor, Mike Caudill (known to his parishioners as Brother Mike), and members of the church were gathering to help local teenagers process the news of her death. When we calmed down, many of my teammates and I headed to Merri Kathryn’s church. One classmate in the stands told a few of us that the sudden sound of our grief was like an explosion of shotguns as it echoed around the mountains surrounding our Eastern Kentucky baseball field. My teammates and I immediately erupted with loud cries of lament. In a serious tone, he told us that Merri Kathryn Prater, a good friend and classmate, had passed away a few days after her tragic road accident. Then one of our coaches gathered us together. One warm April night, my high school baseball team was celebrating a big win. In this Close Reading series, biblical scholars reflect on a passage in their area of expertise that has been formational in their own discipleship and continues to speak to them today.
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