The Catacombs – Just Do Your Job

A few years ago, I traveled to Paris, France to attend my brother’s wedding. I was the typical tourist visiting the Eiffel Tower, the Louver and the Notre Dame Cathedral. One afternoon, I found the entrance to the Parisian catacombs. The catacombs are a labyrinth of passage ways and rooms used by gravediggers over hundreds of years to store the bones of the dead to make room in overcrowded cemeteries. It is entirely under the city with no street signs or sunlight. The French Resistance used these passageways to fight against the Germans in World War II. What struck me as I walked through the place was how the bones were stored. Piled six to seven feet high, they stayed in place with a retaining wall made entirely of femurs. Every wall of bones had a plaque attached that identified the cemetery where the remains were from and the years that the dead were buried before they were brought to this final resting place. 

What struck me as I walked through miles of boney passageways was how some gravediggers took time to build a wall with amazing attention to detail. They were committed to the task, placing one row of bones in a straight, level line and matched the row above it in the same way. They did their job. Others didn’t have the same level of commitment. Their retaining walls were below standards; barely good enough to hold back the remains of the long ago dead.  

One of my expectations for people at work is simply this: Just Do Your Job. There are standards for police officers, public safety dispatchers and first responders just as there were standards for gravediggers. In the catacombs, job performance was on display centuries after the job was complete. As Christians, our job performance is a testimony of faith and that testimony is timeless. It is the means by which we can share how our faith in God gives us strength to do our job even when the task is mundane, challenging or difficult. What does this testimony look like? Be content. Don’t grumble. Do all things to the glory of God.

Be Content

Jesus taught his disciples to be content and used a parable about work to drive the point home. Matthew 20 tells about a man who hired people throughout the day to work in his fields. Some worked twelve hours and others worked only two. When the labor was finished, he paid everyone the exact same wage. The men who worked all day were not content with what they received for their labor. People pay attention to how we react when things don’t go our way at work. Our attitude will be remembered long after an event fades into memory. Philippians 4:7, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Don’t Grumble

It is in our nature to complain. It is easy to grumble about people who don’t work as hard as you, a “poor” decision made by the boss or a task that you really don’t like to perform. There are two things that you can count on at work: 1) Sooner or later everyone is going to let you down. 2) There will be tasks to do that you have no interest in completing. How should we respond in these situations? Philippians 2:14-15 “Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky…”

Do All Things to the Glory of God

No matter if you are a peace officer or a Parisian gravedigger, we are called to do our job to God’s glory. Colossians 3:17 “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Job performance can be a powerful testimony. We can demonstrate patience and kindness. We can offer protection and perseverance. We can show grace by keeping no record of wrongs. 

A few years ago, I worked with a man who did not know Christ. We did not interact very much except for a hallway greeting here or there and short conversations in the report writing room. He eventually went to work for another police department. Last year, he became a Christian and attended the church where I sing on the worship team. He told a pastor that although we never really interacted, he could see there was something different about how I did my job. It was not until he saw me leading worship that it fit together. James wrote that faith without works is dead. I will borrow this observation with a small change of context. Work with faith and live! You never know who is watching...

Dying Declarations

A dying declaration is a statement made by a person about to die (or thinks they are about to die). It is admissible in court as an exception to the hearsay rule. A person’s last words. When Jesus went to the cross, he went there with two other men. All three had things to say. Luke 23 records this dialogue while they died by crucifixion.

“Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ But the other criminal rebuked him. ‘Don’t you fear God,’ he said, ‘since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’Jesus answered him, ‘’”

Some think this man lived a criminal life and made a last second plea for grace. Live now, cry later. The guy got away with murder! How could a man like THAT get into heaven? I think was more to this dying declaration than meets the eye.

It's likely that both of these condemned men spent time in jail before they hung on a cross next to Jesus. In fact, it would make sense that they heard about Jesus long before they got to Calvary. Consider that John the Baptist was arrested and tossed into the Fortress of Machaerus about 14 miles from Jerusalem by King Herod. John remained in custody from the time Jesus started calling his first disciples until he was executed. John started the first prison ministry.

I wonder if these men were in the same prison as John. One man listened to John's message, the other mocked it. John proclaimed the forgiveness of sin and salvation for all. He taught about the man called Jesus and offered a testimony about what happened when he baptized Jesus. Guilty of nothing other than making a king's wife angry, he was a voice calling in a wilderness of convicts.

The two criminals would eventually be brought to Jerusalem. Roman soldiers took them to a hill and carried out the death sentence. Where these men were accompanied by a detachment of soldiers, a crowd followed Jesus. Each man was nailed to a cross and lifted up to die. The hours passed and both men confessed that Jesus was the Messiah. One taunted the Savior, called on Him to join a conspiracy and save only him. The other admitted guilt and accepted his death sentence. He asked simply for Jesus to remember him. Jesus would do more than remember. "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."

We will all make a dying declaration. What remains is which condemned man would we be?