"White Magic" compared to Christ

It was supposed to be a simple transaction: picking up two barrels in Jacmel that I had shipped in a container. But it turned into a lesson about the darkness that keeps some from seeing the light of Christ in Haiti.

It turned out the person who had the key for the house where the barrels were stored was at a funeral. So we went to the “Temple” where the funeral was being held to wait for him.

As I talked to Bruno (not his real name), the man who was helping me get the barrels, he started telling me about the “Temple” and the religion it represented. He said Voodoo priests practice “black magic”, but the people of the “temple” religion practiced “white magic”.

As we waited we saw signs of their religion: Their major insignia was a skull and cross bones, and some of them wore “skull caps”.

In the final procession, the “temple” faithful marched two by two with vests covered with the skull and crossbones insignia in front of the casket in an un-earthly silence only broken by the wail of a distraught woman. Their “high priest” came last in a long robe of blue with a blood-red sash.

As we waited I asked Bruno if he was “converted” (Born again). (This is a socially acceptable question in Haiti). When he said he was not, I told him the story of how I was shot. Since we were sitting in my truck, I showed him the bullet holes in the seat and door as well. I told him how God had helped me remember the Bible verse 1 John 5:13 which gave me the assurance that if I had died that day, I would be in heaven with Christ. I asked him if he had that same assurance and he said he did. However, when I asked him why, he said it was because he does good things, like going to church and helping people. So I showed him in the Bible where it says that doing good things does not get us into heaven. He seemed to understand this and we talked about the subject later that night before I dropped him off.

In all, the whole episode took 3 hours from start to finish, but seeing that funeral made me think about what lengths people will go to trying to reach God through religion (Rituals not found in the Bible). We can thank God for “Emmanuel”, God with us, that God came down to us in human form because we could never go to him through religion or good works.