We are about to behold a priest without peer. Just to say the word priest or preacher brings to mind all kinds of stories where the clergy became the laughing stock of the joke. Such as: A bus driver and a priest died at the same time. Although the bus driver was sent directly to heaven, the priest's case was apparently harder to decide. "I don't mind that you sent a bus driver to heaven," the priest complained, "but, after all, I was a priest, so why should I be kept waiting?" He was answered by a voice from on high, "Father, when you were preaching, everyone was falling asleep, but when the bus driver was driving, everyone was praying."

One of my best friends, when I was a pastor in Missouri, was the Roman Catholic priest who ministered in the same town as I. He was Irish, had a sense o…