Everything I know about time travel I learned in Sunday School
Remember flannelgraphs?
My third-grade Sunday school teacher inspired my time travel tendencies. Rosie Cass could tell nail-biting stories while recreating the ancient world of Jesus with her magical flannel graph set. According to Rosie, Mary and Joseph didn’t travel to Bethlehem. Oppressive Romans forced the couple to make the harrowing journey. Jesus didn’t die an easy death. Romans beat the Savior and nailed him to a cross. When Rosie spoke, I could taste the dust and hear the ring of the hammer. Rosie’s tales immediately transported me to the days when Rome owned the world.
Rosie’s flannel pieces were returned to the box long ago. But my imagination lingers in the past, contemplating the fears and feelings of those who lived before me. I’ve spent hours digging through books on Rome and the struggles of the early church.
Did you know that third-century Christians faced not only the worst persecution in history but also a deadly plague? And even more fascinating, did you know that in the ancient port city of Carthage persecuted Christians organized health care and saved the empire?
Like you, I wondered how Christians could offer care to the same people who were determined to have them exterminated. The only way to know the truth was to send a time traveler to investigate.
When Dr. Lisbeth Hastings was chosen for this mission, she wasn’t keen on the idea. In fact, I sort of pushed her through the portal.
Lisbeth is a brilliant, first-year medical intern, who counts science as her god. Like most young doctors she’s full of angst. The thing that keeps her up at night is the possibility that she’ll screw up and kill someone. As you can imagine, facing a deadly epidemic is terrifying. Especially since I sent her to the third-century armed with only her wits, a few homeopathic remedies, and her mother’s stethoscope.
Wearing third-century clothes, Lisbeth watches as the plague becomes an equalizer of rank and religion. What isn’t equal is the populace’s response. The pagans won’t even take time to carry their dead to the street. The Christians carry the dying into their homes. While soldiers march the cobblestones searching for anyone refusing to worship the gods of Rome, Lisbeth goes from bed to bed trying to stop the feverish rash. Although Lisbeth is not a Christian, their fears become hers. Outnumbered, outranked, and out of time, she witnesses incredible acts of bravery as well as cowardly betrayals.
If the hand of God is upon this pivotal moment in history, is the hand of God upon the time traveler, Dr. Lisbeth Hastings?
Want to know what really happened in Carthage? You’ll have to time travel to the third century because you won’t hear this story in Sunday school.
