Bessie’s Final Fling
“Load the Bovine!”
Bio-weapons aren’t a new concept. Sure, weapons of mass destruction that can spread smallpox or other horrible diseases are a very frightening, very real possibility in today’s climate of international terror. Still, the utilization of
Disease to smite your enemy is an ancient practice of war.
For instance, during the siege of Kaffa, in 184 B.C., the Tartar Army hurled the corpses of their plague-ridden dead over the city wall until its inhabitants were forced to surrender. And in 1422, at the battle of Carolstein, the corpses of pestilence-infected soldiers coupled with 2000 cartloads of excrement were hurled at the enemy.
Thankfully, the electric fan had not yet been invented!
In the Middle Ages, it was not uncommon to use weapons of war to hurl 300 lb. stones as much as a quarter mile! The most popular device, the trebuchet, was used as a siege engine. It could hurl stones or other projectiles, while remaining safely out of range of enemy fire. Think of it as a massive slingshot complete with counterweights. In skilled hands, it was a deadly war machine.
“Aim the Bovine!”
One of the favorite air-express via trebuchet wartime deliveries was the perfunctory disease-laden dead cow. While cows never got to actually ‘jump over the moon’, it was no doubt scary as a midnight visit from the local Catholic Inquisitor to see a mountain of dearly departed beef suddenly raining down from above while a sentry screamed, “There’s the beef!” It was the gothic way saying, “Got Curdled Milk?”
The Black Angus of Death had come calling for Bessie promising to take her gentle bovine soul to a distant field where she would be milked by icy fingers no more, a place where the alfalfa is green, and the cud chews sweet, a place where that dreaded grilling hamburger smell will forever be a distant memory, a place Beyond that cows reverently refer to as the “Final Roundup.”
Too bad cows don’t have souls. Moo-Hoo already. Healthy cows were destined for the pit - the barbeque pit! If unhealthy, they became a bio-degraded airborne disease delivery agent. It was Apocalypse Cow: “Drop the bullock, exterminate them all!” Talk about having your tail in a sling! It was messy when Bessie took flight. Cow pie flinging contests, sure, but this?
“Launch the Bovine!”
While it seems comical in this day and age to imagine someone hurtling a dead cow over a castle wall, our death delivery systems have become far more expeditious. Man now has the god-like capacity to destroy our entire planet with the push of a few buttons. And there are murderous zealots usually of Middle Eastern origin plotting and praying for the opportunity to drop the Big One to rid the planet of people unlike themselves.
Soberly consider this end time prophecy found in Revelation 9:15, 18. “So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released to kill a third of mankind. By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed–by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which came out of their mouths.” This future history will make death by falling cow seem almost humane.
Good News! Instead of fearfully watching the skies for incoming cows, we who love God can look up in hope for our redemption draws nigh. Revelation 19:11, “Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war.”
Are you ready for the final cattle call?
Bryan Hupperts © 2002 -2009
www.sheeptrax.com/xpress
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