4/06/07
The Bridge:The Incredible Wooing of an Incredible God.

The voice of tongues leads me to a great chasm.  There is no way across, yet the wooing to cross overpowering.  Suddenly a bridge appears ~ not made with human hands, it is awesomely bleak and fearful to behold.  Because of the treacherous look, I determine to find another way to answer the call.  There is no other bridge.  Difficult enough to see the length of this bridge, I can’t imagine having strength to navigate it.  A central column plunges down to the very depths of the chasm, supporting the massive structure.  Yet even with this firm under girding, it looks too hazardous to attempt.  Frankly, it looks impossible.

Weary of seeking an alternate route, I begin the trek.  There is no path, no road to escape the huge ruptures that divide this avenue.  Over and over I am tempted to go back but the repeated wooing, the beckoning voice, is too strong to resist.  I rest only briefly before the voice lifts me to my feet again.  My progress is slow and painstaking.

The bridge shifts and moves as I cross it.  Very seldom is it still.  Every time I experience its stillness, I believe the security is permanent.  Then a shift occurs ~ a great heaving, causing me to fall great distances, grasping for support.  I am amazed that I repeated trust the stillness.  It holds no reality, yet I want so much to believe in it I make it a reality, if only momentary. Treacherous and unpredictable, this bridge seems alive to test my determination to reach the other side.

After one particularly hard shifting, I see what looks to be a mountain spanning the width of the bridge.  It looks impassable, impossible but I cannot take the time to consider it.  The focus to climb and to descend the terrain at hand consumes my thinking.  Great portions of the bridge have erupted not long ago, leaving gapping holes and huge overhangs that cause me to grown faint.  I persist, slowly but I persist.

Suddenly I am at the mountain’s edge.  Dark, thickly matted with trees and undergrowth, there is no path through it and certainly no way around it.  This looks to be the end of my journey and I cry with frustration.  I can’t even see the other side.  I have no way of knowing how far I am from the voice.  Collapsing in tears, too exhausted to think of what to do next, I hear the voice again.  This brings me to total anguish.  As my lament intensifies, I become aware of movement on the mountain… No!  I look again ~ the mountain itself is moving!

The whole mountain is rotates on the narrow bridge until I see that the approaching side is cleared of brush and trees.  Bleak and smooth, it slowly spins toward me and my personal mourning is forgotten as my entire focus has become this bleak clearing.  Ever so slowly, it rotates.  Recognition forms in my mind even as I reject the thoughts.  It is too horrible to digest.  I push them away and search desperately for another explanation.  

As abruptly as it began, the rotation ceases.  There before me is the naked face of Jesus.

His hair is matted with blood and grime.  His dear face lacerated and marred with dried blood.  His head is the mountain on my path.  I look down and realize I am standing on His torn shoulder.  He has made this bridge for me ~ extending His arms to touch my world.  I collapse, still all around me the knowledge that I’ve traveled through jagged and freshly carved cliffs, peaks and valleys; that I’ve traveled an incredibly marred highway composed of His own ripped flesh ~ this is more than I can hold.

The wooing increases.  Against my heart’s cry, I lift my eyes again to His face.  But the wooing does not come from Him.  He is an instrument of wooing, a vessel that pours the wooing out. My gaze travels His features, not in fear or shame now, but in curious love.  In silent adoration, I seek the source of wooing, knowing that in it I will find the reason for this bleak and horrendously lonely sacrifice.  Everywhere I look there is darkness, death, and the stench that comes with tortured, scarred flesh.  It is a death smell.  Vivid reminders of man’s tendency to  destroy what he cannot understand.  When my search lands in His gaze, I find the only warm and inviting place on my journey.  His eyes speak life and defy death.  They speak joy and reject misery.  They betray the physical evidence of evil piled high all around us.   Incredibly His eyes draw me closer ~ until I am in a position where I must choose to dive into the liquid love of them or turn away. 

I dive.
Their rich brownness swallow me completely.

Time stands still as I swim ~ graceful…. oh so graceful… through this tranquil pond of love.
Finally I must surface, I must breath.  At the last moment, I break the calm, still waters; gasping for air.  As my lungs calm, my eyes open and an astonishingly different world appears.

Beauty abounds.   Mercy permeates the air.  Music and laughter are inescapable and enchanting.  I find myself again standing on His shoulder, but it is clean and smooth.  The whiteness of this path, His robe, is brilliant ~ so radiant it lights the entire sky.  No trace of darkness exists.  Evil and sadness have disappeared ~ swallowed up, destroyed, in this light. 

His eyes beckon me again.  I drink them in and see they twinkle with joy.  The wooing voice of tongues calls from the end of this brilliantly light, incredibly smooth path.  My understanding increases but still, I know what I must ask.

“Impossibly, have I just come through You?”
“Impossibly.”  He smiles, “You have.”

“Impossibly, is this the other side of darkness?”
“Impossibly.”   He nods,  “It is.”

“Impossibly, are You the Bridge of Life?”
“Impossibly.”   He thunders.  “I AM! 

Now my questions are barely thought before He peppers me with answers…

“I AM THAT I AM!”    He draws a breath and then begins to roar….

“I AM THAT I AM!  YOU ARE FOR I AM!  I IN YOU AND YOU IN ME!”

“I in you and you in ME!”

“You entered My eye and became graceful, for I filled you with Grace!”

“You are the Apple of My Eye.”

“As an Apple belonging to ME,

 
I say YOU ARE NO LONGER THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT!”
 

“I AM THAT I AM!  YOU ARE FOR I AM!  I IN YOU AND YOU IN ME!”

I tremble at His Voice.  I tremble at the implications, no ~ the declarations ~ that He speaks.

Yet once more, I must ask a question.

“Impossibly, are we like Musketeers?”
 
He begins to laugh.  He shakes with laughter!  I have to cling to His robe to keep from falling off His magnificent shoulder. He quakes that hard.

“Impossibly, I AM!    All for One and One for all!”

His laughter brought song to the chasm… and it sang…

All for One and One for all,
By 3 of Us you rise, you fall.
In 3 of Us you live, you breathe
Once joined We promise not to leave.

All for One and One for all!
The smallest of you will stand tall.
The weakest will be bold and brave
Their Purpose is the world to save.

All for One and One for all.
By 3 of Us you rise, you fall.
Choose you this day which it will be
To fail or walk in Destiny.

With a light heart and joy-filled step, with an unshakable trust ~ for it is His joy that shakes my path ~ I follow the voice of tongues, that led me to a great and holy chasm.