Holy Joe

I grew up in a Christian home, and my father was a Baptist preacher for 55 years.  One Sunday, when I was 9 years old, I got sick, and my parents allowed me to stay home from church alone.  We lived next door to the church that my father pastored, and my mother came home periodically to check on me.  I went through my father’s workbench and found a gospel tract titled Holy Joe. 

The tract is a comic strip about a Christian man named Joe that is in the military.  The other soldiers ridicule Joe for his belief in Christ and call him Holly Joe.  One night, when Joe is praying, the other men throw their boots at him and say, “Hey Holy Joe… Here’s your showers of blessings” (page 4).  The next morning, Joe had polished their boots and left them by their bunks.  The Sergeant becomes angry and puts Joe on KP duty for a week, but the more the officer over the mess hall makes Joe do, the harder Joe works.  The other soldiers mock Joe because he reads his Bible and tell Joe that they think his “Jesus and the Bible are a lot of trash” (page 6).  The Sergeant says he will nail Joe on a Section Eight, but when Joe talks to the “Head Shrinker,'' he gives his testimony and witnesses to the Psychiatrist.  When they go into combat, the Sergeant sends Joe on a dangerous mission into battle, and Joe is killed.  When the Sergeant notices the peaceful look on Joe’s face, he thinks that “maybe what Joe had was real” (page 14).  The Sergeant confesses to God that he is a sinner, that he needs the Savior that Joe talked about and asks God to save him.  Then, the Sergeant is ambushed and killed.  When he goes to heaven, he is told that his act of faith put his name in the Book of Life and is welcomed into the Joy of the Lord.

When I finished reading Holy Joe, I was under conviction and understood that I was a sinner in need of a savior.  I prayed that God would forgive me of my sins and asked Him to be the Lord of my life.  When my parents got home, I told them the decision I made to follow Christ, and they were excited!  My mother wanted to document the occasion in her calendar and simply wrote the words “Holy Joe!”

Holy Joe is a gospel tract published by Chick Publications. It can be found at https://www.chick.com/products/tract?