Glen Davis

Joe Zick­afoose

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died last night. He had can­cer, and in the process of treat­ment his immune sys­tem became so weak that he was very vul­ner­a­ble to infec­tion, got pneu­mo­nia, and died.

Maybe this is nor­mal, but I don’t feel over­whelmed by emo­tion until I try to talk to some­one about it. It’s kind of weird. When I’m on the phone with a mutu­al friend of Joe’s, I start to choke up. And I usu­al­ly weep for a few moments after I hang up. After that, I’m fine (albeit sad) until the next con­ver­sa­tion.

It would be hard to over­state Joe’s influ­ence in my life. When I moved from Louisiana to Mis­souri to go to sem­i­nary, I began vol­un­teer­ing at the Chi Alpha min­istry he led at Mis­souri State Uni­ver­si­ty. He soon asked me to join him on staff, and I seized the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with this amaz­ing man.

I got to know Joe very well over the next few years. He was a real men­tor. He told amaz­ing­ly fun­ny sto­ries. He was kind and car­ing. And wicked smart. Joe real­ly knew his stuff. He helped me under­stand how the­ol­o­gy relat­ed to prac­ti­cal min­istry in a way that is still stun­ning to me.

I have so many vivid mem­o­ries of Joe that it’s hard to believe he’s real­ly dead.

I’ll nev­er for­get his boom­ing laugh echo­ing through the office. I remem­ber once I was giv­ing a stu­dent an expla­na­tion about escha­tol­ogy (the end of the world), and after the stu­dent left Joe just start­ed laugh­ing uncon­trol­lably. “Glen, do you real­ize how many times I’ve heard you give that exact same expla­na­tion using the exact same words to stu­dents?” Maybe it would be fun­nier if you heard my expla­na­tion and knew a lit­tle more about my denom­i­na­tion, but this isn’t real­ly the place for a the­o­log­i­cal trea­tise on the return of Christ.

Anoth­er sto­ry that springs to mind is the time Joe decid­ed to buy a motor­cy­cle. He used to ride them as a kid, and he want­ed to return to the hal­cy­on days of his youth. So he did his research, bought the bike and all the acces­sories. It was a months-long process, filled with days of Joe wax­ing elo­quent about the joys of motor­cy­cle rid­ing. Joe could get pret­ty obses­sive about his hob­bies, and this was close to dis­plac­ing music in his lev­el of pas­sion. He set out to ride and my phone rang about an hour lat­er. It was Joe. “Glen, I crashed my bike. Can you come pick me up?” So I set out in my trust Isuzu pick­up to retrieve the noble fall­en Zick­afoose. He sold the bike short­ly after­ward. It was one of the most heart­break­ing and yet fun­ny events I can remem­ber.

But my favorite sto­ry of Joe has to be his sal­va­tion sto­ry. I might have it a lit­tle jum­bled, but this is the essence of it. He spent his teenage years work­ing hard and sav­ing for col­lege. How­ev­er, when he arrived at Kent State he blew all the mon­ey he had spent years sav­ing in one term on a crazy drug binge. He had to drop out because he had deplet­ed all his funds. But before he did, he met Jesus. Here’s how it hap­pened.

Joe and his drug bud­dies used to stay up late at night talk­ing about crazy stuff they had seen. Joe Zick­afoose’s room­mate, Joe Dal­to­rio (here­after referred to as Big Joe), had some of the best sto­ries about peo­ple he had seen healed at the Pen­te­costal church he grew up in. Joe was skep­ti­cal, but Big Joe swore up and down he had seen it with his own eyes.

One night Joe was vis­it­ing his sup­pli­er down the hall, and they made some sort of joke about Satan. As Joe tells it, at that moment they felt the tem­per­a­ture drop and an omi­nous pres­ence filled the room. Joe fled back to his room where Big Joe hap­pened to be. As Joe entered the room, he felt the exact oppo­site pres­ence. A sense of over­whelm­ing peace filled his dorm room.

“I don’t know what’s hap­pen­ing in here, but I want it.”

Big Joe looked at him and said, “Joe, I’m what you call a back­slid­er. I was turn­ing my back on what I knew to be true. I told you all those sto­ries about my church, but I nev­er told you the most impor­tant sto­ry of all. Jesus is God and he died for your sins. You can be for­giv­en and have peace with God. I just fin­ished repent­ing and I’m not going to be part of the drug scene any­more. Do you want in?”

Joe said sure, and so Big Joe explained, “This is the way they do it at church. Would you please bow your head? With­out look­ing around, if you want to receive Jesus Christ as your per­son­al lord and sav­ior, would you please raise your hand? Great. Please kneel and repeat after me. Dear Jesus, I know I’m a sin­ner and I need your grace. I humbly repent and please for­give me of my sins and help me not to do them any­more. With your help, I’ll serve you.”

And that’s how Joe became a Chris­t­ian. His drug friends came over to his room and Joe decid­ed to put some music on to cel­e­brate. He began dig­ging through his col­lec­tion until he found some­thing that looked reli­gious and put it on the record play­er. He told his friends, “See, there’s a quote by George Bernard Shaw about God on the cov­er. It’s spir­i­tu­al music.”

His drug deal­er friend start­ed laugh­ing. “What does George Bernard Shaw know about God? He was an athe­ist!”

Joe’s coun­te­nance changed; he stared at his record col­lec­tion. “I’ve been deceived,” he said slow­ly. He took the record off the play­er and threw it out his win­dow like a fris­bee. It smashed into the next build­ing. His friends sat stunned. One by one he took all the records in his col­lec­tion and hurled them into obliv­ion, his friends scream­ing at him to stop and beg­ging him to give them the records instead. He bel­lowed, “None shall have them!”

I always used to crack up at that line. “None shall have them!”

There are so many sto­ries about Joe. He was tru­ly an amaz­ing indi­vid­ual. I’ll miss him deeply. We had­n’t talked too much in the last few years because he was serv­ing over­seas as a mis­sion­ary to uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents in Scot­land, but I thought of him often.

I can bare­ly imag­ine what his wife and teenage sons must be going through. I rejoice that Joe is in heav­en expe­ri­enc­ing his reward, but I weep for his fam­i­ly who now must sol­dier on with­out him. If you remem­ber, be sure to pray for them.