Journey

Today we will make plans for a journey we don’t want to make. Today we will book tickets to the USA. Today we will confirm travel arrangements to visit Lisa’s dad in California. We have made this journey before. But before we made the journey for very different reasons. Before, we went for a holiday. Before, we went so the grandparents could see their grandchildren in the flesh and comment on how much they’d grown. Before, we went because we wanted to go and chose to go. This time we are choosing to go, but we don’t want to go. It’s not that we don’t want to see Lisa’s dad and step mum. We do. But we don’t to go because it will b a goodbye. And a difficult goodbye. This will be the last trip we make to California. This will be the last trip we make to see Lisa’s dad. We know that, He knows that. We all know that. We all know it’s a journey none of us want to make. But today we are planning the journey, buying the tickets and making plans. Today we have to confront the truth. There’s another journey that confronts the truth. A journey that speaks to our journey. He left all the glory of heaven. He chose to dwell with the very people he had created. He chose to take the risk of trusting himself into the hands of two Jewish teenagers. He chose to trust himself to the bigger and far better story of his father’s love. Ii was journey made out of love. In the Garden of Gethsemane it was journey he really didn’t want to make: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me.” (Luke 22:42) I sometimes think we deny the humanness of Jesus. In this moment his humanness is real: “This is a journey I don’t want to make!” He gets it. He really gets it. His journey is not our journey. But it speaks to us, today. That he chose to make his journey, speaks to us in our journey. Because he went on the journey he really didn’t want to, we have hope for our journey. It doesn’t mean our journey won’t be painful, challenging and full of tears. It will. But it means that we can trust ourselves to his bigger and better story. The story that he has confronted death, defeated it and made another journey possible. The journey of life with God, which is better by far. In our humanness we will find our journey very difficult, but, because he made his journey, we can trust ourselves to God’s bigger and far better story and know that he holds us in all things.