Someone's Gotta Play the Bad Guy
My Daddy, the Tempter. I squirmed down in my seat on the slippery wooden pew and tried not to look at my own father tempting the Lord in front of the whole church! Now, squirreling down on those pews was not easy to do with the bare skin exposed on the back of my legs! At least not quietly. Anyway... My father had a deep, rich baritone voice, and apparently the devil does too, because year after year he was given the part of Satan tempting Jesus in the wilderness. "If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. Com-mand that. these. stones. be. made. bread!" Then our lead tenor, Maurice Macy, would answer him with the sweet voice of Jesus. "Man shall not live by bread alone. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Fast forward about 40 years and I am seeing my firstborn son hanging on a cross in front of the whole church. You guessed it, he's not playing Jesus. My family members ha