Gospel

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THE CHASM

I gasp. I tremble. I'm tense. My eyes are wide open. Only once (maybe twice) do I dare peek over the side. Between my racing heart and the asphalt parking lot is a massive vertical track of glass windows.

As if from nowhere, I have found myself on top of a massive skyscraper. Strangely, the rooftop upon which I sit is no larger than a dining room table. And it seems to get slightly smaller every time I look at it.

The wind blasts across my ears, deafening me. Sometimes the wind stops. And I have a moment of balance. But those moments are full of my pounding heart and the lump in my throat. Though for that moment the wind is calm, I'm not calm at all. I'm flooded with fear as I hold on tight and wait to be blindsided by the next gust of wind. With the wind bull-rushing me and nothing to grab onto, absolute terror sweeps over me as I await the inevitable.

Then--it happens. And all I can do is scream. My stomach churns as the falling sensation sets in. The blacktop races toward my face at a hundred miles per hour. "AAAHHHH!"

But then my body jerks and my eyes pop open to reveal a ceiling shrouded in the darkness of 3 am. "It was a dream" runs through my mind along with a sigh through my body.

It's actually a dream I've had a couple of times. It may have been just a dream, but the fear, the anxiety, the absolute helplessness, and the complete lack of security--those feelings were all very real.

I've never been on top of a real building that was as high as the one in my dream. I've never even stood on the cliff of a mountain that was as frightening.

Maybe you have. Maybe you've stood on top of a skyscraper and looked down to see the ant-like cars drive along the street. Maybe from the top of a cliff you've peered down to the frightening jagged rocks below.

Maybe you avoid heights for that very reason. Maybe you stay away from the Ferris Wheels at carnivals, the ski lifts at resorts, and the sky buckets at amusement parks. They're unsettling, unnerving, and disturbing.

Here's another disturbing scene. Instead of just the vertical distance between you and the ground, add in a tremendous horizontal distance between you and something else--something you desperately want or need.

Imagine a scene right out of an Indiana Jones movie. You're running from a band of thugs wielding large swords. They want your head, and they're right on your tail. You barely outrun them as you race through dense jungle brush.

And then, as you leap through some shrubs, you land just at the edge of a one hundred foot cliff. At the bottom of the cliff is a river filled with dozens of hungry crocodiles and piranhas. And another one hundred feet lies between you and the cliff on the other side of the river. The only thing between you and escaping the bloodthirsty swordsmen is a centuries-old, rickety rope bridge that doesn't appear as though it would support the weight of a feather. You place your foot on the first plank of the bridge to test it. It immediately snaps and crumbles, and the majority of the bridge begins sailing down to the waters below.

Take in the anxiety of the moment. If you stay, the murderous mob will have you. If you jump, the crocs will have you. What you want more than anything is to plant your feet firmly on the other side of the chasm. If you only had the sweet escape to safety just on the other side of the gorge!

Take the distance between you and the ravenous reptiles and add the distance between you and freedom, and you have a scene that is doubly disturbing.

And here's the doubly disturbing reality. You do stand at such a chasm. We all do.

It hasn't always been there. There was a time when the earth wasn't split. The cliffs were connected. And on the other side of the fault line was not a desirable path for escaping swordsmen.

But rather, we stood on a plain with God Almighty. There was nothing between He and us. There were no obstructions. There was no great distance causing us to reach and cry out to be in the most desirable company imaginable.

But something changed. The earth shook. The rocks cracked. The ground split. And the cliffs were parted. There we stood--one hundred feet from the One we need, and one hundred feet above a ghastly place of final rest.

What caused it? What got us here? Why are we so far away? What cost us the paradise in His presence we once enjoyed?

"Behold, the Lord's hand is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear; but your sins have separated you and your God; your iniquities have hidden His face from you" (Isaiah 59:1-2 MLV).

We caused it. We made the earth shake. We made the rocks split. We made the cliffs separate.

Can you believe it? Why would we do that? Why would we want to mess up the situation we were in? There were no swordsmen behind us. There were no crocodiles beneath us. There was no chasm before us. And there was no distance between God and us.

But we sinned. We transgressed. We chose to violate God's will. We decided to do the very thing that separates us from God.

So because of our own stupid decisions, we are where we are. We stand at the chasm, staring across the divide at where we want to be and staring down the gorge at where we don't want to end up.

We are afraid. We are terrified. We tremble as our feet teeter over the edge of a ten-story drop to a gruesome death. We gasp at the thought of being dashed against the rocks under the water once we hit the river. We scream at the thought of being torn and dismembered by the beasts at the bottom. As we stare down, we are afraid.

We are helpless. We are insecure. We are isolated and estranged. Even though we can open our eyes and see where we are, we are lost. We groan at the thought of being severed from the very One we need to be with. We sob as we see that peaceful place so far out of our reach. As we stare across, we are lonely.

But our story doesn't end there. We may be hopeless, we may be powerless, we may be stuck, but God is not.

"God reconciled us to Himself through Christ" (2Corinthians 5:18).

"Although you were formerly alienated, He has now reconciled you in His
fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and
blameless and beyond reproach (Colossians 1:21-22).

Even though our bad decisions cause the rocks to split and the earth to move, even though our own sins left us dangling over the cliffs of doom and despair, even though we separated ourselves from Him, God sized up the situation and declared, "I will build a bridge!"

He didn't build a weak and frail rope bridge; He built the bridge of all bridges. He bridged the gap between Him and us with the sound, solid cross of His son, Jesus Christ.

But why? Why would God do this? We're just little ants in God's eyes--little ants that thought we were big enough and bad enough not to have to do what He tells us. Why would He go to such great lengths to help His betrayers?

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son" (John 3:16).

"But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still
sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

"This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only
son into the world that we might live through Him" (1John 4:9).

Love can build a bridge! Even though we had gotten ourselves into a fine mess, even though we're the ones that separated ourselves from Him, even though we weren't all that lovely, God loved us so much that He built a bridge.

He sent His son into the world with a mission. His mission: to construct a cross that would span the great divide.

And now, if we choose to cross the bridge that Christ built, we are saved from the depth and width of the monstrous gorge. No more dreams of falling. No more dreams of longing. As long as we're on the bridge crossing to the other side, we're sure-footed.

And the day that we die, we reach the end of that bridge. We reach the other side where God is. You want to know one of the greatest things about where God is? The things that aren't there with Him!

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain" (Revelation 21:4).

Wow! Talk about a dramatic scene! One decision--dumb and costly. One chasm--deep and wide. One God--loving and powerful. One Son--strong and selfless. One bridge--sure and steady. One destination--worth it all! This great rescue story should motivate us to cross that bridge and keep crossing it every day. In fact, there are four major reasons that should drive us to get on and stay on that bridge.

First, all these things are real. This isn't just a fairy tale or some neat idea. We really have put ourselves in front of this chasm due to our sin. We really are in a perilous position. God really does love us so much that He sent His son, Jesus. Jesus really did die on a cross. His cross really is our bridge back to God. And there really is a wonderful place on the other side. So we should cross because of the confidence we have that these things are true.

Second, God is so loving and so gracious. God has given us an indescribable gift even though we really weren't worth spitting on. God didn't just send us a sympathy card, He sent us Himself--His special son! And what God's son, Jesus, had to do to build that bridge for us is heart wrenching. That bridge is actually the cross upon which Jesus died a most brutal death (Colossians 1:19-20). His death took care of the depth and width of the chasm created by our sins. So we should cross because of the gratitude we have for God's amazing gift.

Third, the bottom of the chasm is so terrifying. All that talk about crocodiles and piranhas was just an illustration. What we're really talking about here is hell. Hell--where maggots never stop poring into your carcass and where the agonizing fire never goes out (Mark 9:43-48). Hell--where the painful punishment is everlasting (Matthew 25:46). You may be able to think of ways to escape if you really were in front of a chasm. But as far as this chasm is concerned, you're either crossing the bridge now or falling into the gorge later. We should cross out of fear of what will happen if we don't.

Fourth, the other side of the bridge is so, so good. The greatest love you've ever experienced, the greatest joy you've ever found, the greatest peace you've ever known, the greatest rest you've ever felt--they all await you on the other side. It is a paradise where you contact God so directly that He wipes your tears away (Revelation 7:17). We should cross out of a burning desire for the place on the other side.

With a confidence that the chasm is conquered, with a gratitude for the great gift, with a fear of the fiery fall, and with a desire for our destination, let's cross. No more worries about skyscrapers. No more teetering over the cliff's edge. No more being stuck. No more being hopeless and helpless.

We don't have to take a fall. We don't have to take despair. We don't have to take our chances. Now we can just confidently, thankfully, fearfully, and eagerly take the bridge.

(Contact me at [email protected])

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