Sunday March 7, 2004

toils of future salvation

Like two magnets held at bay by an invisible field, the two halves of the Red Sea struggle to rejoin. The tiny men and women clamor over the wet rocks and boulders as they traverse the impossible valley. The dull roar of ocean and earthquake fills the sky. The men and women, bodies weak and beaten from years of slave labor, seem to crawl like ants whose burdens are too great. The strain and fear on their faces screams out their unlikely faith. Most had believed themselves forsaken. But through their toil came salvation. And even as the first glimpse of hope and promise reaches their eyes, the bodies of the old and the youth are yet again punished by the perils surrounding them. Crushing death on two flanks, torture and suffering behind, and an unknown freedom ahead. Their destination, unknown; the place left behind, undesired. In my mind I see these brothers and sisters of Man. I see what they leave behind, and what they will gain. I see the future and I see the past. But these souls, trapped in flesh, do not grasp the future, nor do they know much of the past. Even their own lives are distant memories. Places been and people lost. These thoughts just waste away in the minds of these child laborers. Who they follow seems not to be a leader of any quality they are accustomed to seeing. He does not brandish a curved sword, nor master a whip of pain. He carries a staff; he walks slow, and speaks even slower. His words confuse, and yet bring men to tremble. He has defeated the Pharaoh, a god on earth. This simple man, whose Master laughs at the magic of the gods, he has brought an empire crashing down through plague and pestilence. And yet, these future men and women of the Promised Land, they barely understand that it is not the toils of this man that bought them their freedom. It was the compassion and love from One they barely seek. So I watch as the near-faithless children of the Living God cross the miracle valley, and I ponder their confused faith. From these children will one day arise forth a Kingdom. And in that Kingdom, I will one day be but another child who toils in the fields.