AL: Joni, you were telling me about some amazing people you’ve met at the nursing home you often visit.
JONI: That’s right. It’s a home for aging actors and cameramen and lighting technicians. It’s a nursing home down the street from where I live. I’ve spoken there a few times, given the Gospel, taken Bibles...
AL: Can you tell us about some of the people you’ve met?
JONI: Well, the other day I met this little elderly guy who worked on the movie, The Wizard of Oz. He was so very proud to tell me that he was the one who made the Cowardly Lion’s tail move back and forth when he sang his song – I guess it was kind of a heavy tail and so some fishing line was attached to the end of it and from the rafters above, he was able to swing the tail back and forth!
AL: So what was that song the Cowardly Lion was singing?!
JONI: … Al, please, I'm no Dorothy with ruby slippers.
AL: … and I'm not the Tin Man…
JONI: … watch it, you’re going to get me singing that song…
AL: Oh no…
JONI (singing): It’s sad, believe me, missy, when you’re born to be a sissy without the vim and verve… but I could show my prowess, be a lion not a mouse, if I only had the nerve. I'm afraid there’s no denyin’, I'm just a dandelion, a fate I don’t deserve. But I’d be brave as a blizzard…
AL: I’d be gentle as a lizard, if I only had the nerve.
JONI: And do you remember how the Cowardly Lion then launched into his speech? “What makes a king out of a slave?!”
AL: Courage!
JONI: What makes the elephant charge his tusks in the misty mist and the dusty dusk?
AL: Courage!
JONI: What makes the muskrat guard his musk?
JONI and AL together: Courage!
JONI: I love that old movie – I need to rent it again. But, friend listening, I don’t mean for us to be laughing about courage, because it’s really not a laughing matter, is it? It takes more than a little courage to be a Christian in this culture. To look someone squarely in the eye and say, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
AL: It takes courage to say that.
JONI: And it’s what the apostle Peter did in Acts 4 when he stood in front of the elders and teachers of the law – he told them in no uncertain terms that salvation was only to be found in Jesus Christ. And you know what strikes me about that story is the courage of Peter. In fact, in the next verse it says that when the elders saw the courage of this unschooled fisherman, they took note that Peter had been with Jesus.
Peter hadn’t been to seminary like the rest of those teachers of the law. No Evangelism Explosion training for him. Nobody ever walked him through how to give the Four Spiritual Laws. The Savior was the source of Peter’s courage. The Spirit of Christ can give you what no evangelism training course can. Christ can give you confidence, boldness, and courage – convictions like these come from spending time with him.
AL: Joni, maybe you can help us one more time. What was that key word that the lion said so long ago?
JONI and AL: Courage!
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