Snapshot
Cross ✝️, Crossing🚶🏿…
Jesus' disciples had a crossing to do. Bearing the cross might likely have lessons conveyed through their very acts. This, we shall consider below. Please note that this is by no means an exhaustive attempt at description. Rather, the views here are limited to the author’s spiritual exposure and experiences.
Distance: “…they started to cross the sea to Capernaum. (vs. 16)”
In coming to Jesus, there’s a distant mileage to cover, and the way through it is narrow. There’s a far distance to travel, and the stretch is becoming like Jesus. Here, we’d be journeying from ourselves into becoming like Jesus. How? You may ask. Jesus came to save us from sin, and sin is our person in entirety. But who can take this honour of gaging the distance on himself? Who can sense the right proportion of mileage coverage, if any or to be covered if known?
Great is the company of those who have counted their cost and are denying themselves and are taking up their cross to follow Jesus. These are the few who know where the Son rises, and their sun sets. These are the few who realize there are crossings associated with the cross. Crossing from darkness into marvellous light. Crossing from where we went as stray sheep to where the guardian of our soul resides. Crossing from Egypt. Crossing from fleshly lust to the will of God to do. Crossing from death to life. Crossing from corrupt church system to assembly of the saints. Crossing from dead work to walk in good works prepared from the beginning of the world.
Here, there is a plough on which all must lay their hands. All who will look back or consider the world and its burden more worthwhile are not worthy of this work. But how shall we know this distance if we never approach the starting line of the journey? How shall we realize the strength reserved for the pilgrims if the trip was never begun? How shall we know the distance between our “selves” and Christlikeness if we never attempt casting affections above, where Jesus resides?
Great is the mystery of godliness; how shall this mystery-simplified become a treasure in our knowledge coffers if we never pass an attempt at godliness? There is a journey from a lower self-nature into “tasting” the nature of God. How shall we retain a portion to be continually tasted if we do not come to the foot of the cross, where the world is to be crucified to us and vice versa? Christianity is a journey from spiritual childishness to child-likeness. That is a journey from spiritual naivety to maturity. How shall we ever conceive the extent of the great walk before us if we never come to Jesus? Not knowing the distance, how shall we estimate our progress? Is Christianity not such a journey into a far, distant future? Wherefore, shall we know how we may embark on OUR crossing “the sea towards Capernaum?”
Darkness: “It had already become dark… (vs. 17)”
Of course, there is not any ease connected with the cross. If you have enjoyed and not endured the cross over the years, there is every reason to question your standing. Or how is ease conceivable on a way fraught with darkness? Darkness, not because Satan has invaded the path to godliness and made it like the shambles met by God in Genesis 1:1. But dark because we know not much about the geographical outlay of the course which we journey through. Oh, the map is in One, and this One rises above human knowledge. Who can sound His depth of the insight of this Man called Jesus? This, combined with our journey out of a pleasure-seeking self-nature into a divine one, heightens the tendency for pilgrims or disciples, who know the great walk before them, to fall into confusion.
Confused because we are not wholehearted enough. And because we loathe enduring the shame associated with our crosses or crossing. Confused because our knowledge of God and His demands are poor and porous. This way can be full of darkness. But when we turn to Christ, our tour guard, in whom there is no shadow of turning. Shall we not find the light? So profound was Elihud statement in Job 35:9-10. There, he meant those who feel God oppresses them by passing them through this “dark” yet glorious way of the cross should ask for a song or unique revelation, which is the light needed to scale this darkness instead of the cry of oppression, that is, murmur.
Are you a sad humming bee or a joyfull singing bird? The dove coos and typifies the Holy Spirit. Can we together set a standard that, “come what may,” we will choose the cooing bird’s response to the dark turns this way take? In your many darkness-driven conflicts and doubts, will you come to the Lamb of God? Will you come without one plea of your endurances and sacrifices on this way, but that the blood of Jesus should cleanse you from all murmurings? Would you not opt for a bright sight and healing of the mind? The way is glorious; check the testimony of those gone before us, who are now our cloud of witnesses. Yet so low indeed is our nature, incapable and reluctantly responding to the demands of the higher.
Did the Master himself not experience darkness on the Cross? His was total forsaking; ours doctored covering.
Delay: “and Jesus had not yet come to them… (vs. 17)”
In our crossings, or equally, in taking up our cross, Jesus often seems late in our comprehensions. Mary and Mathar have denied themselves of their brother. They could not probably stand the shame associated with being affiliated to a miracle worker and losing Christ own personal friend, their brother, due to some delay on the path of Jesus. Since Mathar said, my brother would not have died if you had been here. They could not fathom it.
Likewise, John the Baptist had spent a little while in the custody of Herod for no just cause. Under the Mosaic law, which that rugged man operated, according to Zac Poonen, safety was a reward for faithfulness. It was, therefore, not out of place to have expected intervention from Jesus. Yet Jesus told the inquirers John sent to tell him what he was doing to the sick, blind and co. That meant John was not in the class of those whom he could come to rescue. Simply because John “who was well needed no physician.”
The sense of delay on this road is inevitable but needs to be repented of every other time. Shall Jesus who knew the demands for my sin and paid ever before I knew the sinfulness of my sin ever be late to rescue? This delay seemingly experienced by us, as with John the Baptist and Mary and Martha, is because the ways of the Lord are so far away from our sinful ways. So too is the knowledge and wisdom of God.
Surprisingly, Jesus is away from us, and we conclude He has delayed. But, even if His delay was really a delay, should His promise “that all things shall work for our good” not drown out the fears and doubts that make us displease God in this sense? Can I tell you, dear reader, that all things - including every perceived delay will work for our good? His delay is not denial.
How else shall we learn patience in this long haul if we do not learn to await God’s divine timing? Even at waiting in this seeming delay, has He not promised that those who wait upon Him shall renew their strength? So John found strength as an assurance of completing his work. And dying when he heard Jesus was not delayed but that His refusal to come was planned and divinely timed.
Oh, times when Christ feels aloof of our burdens, and we think He cares less about us are the periods to stand, waiting, upon His promises. So we shall endure delay but not the denial of the spiritually embellishing virtue for which the delay was intended and divinely doctored by Christ Jesus.
