Christ – The Way

     We are not unlike eight-year-old Jack Keely from the East End of London.  He was bound for the U.S. when the Benares on which he was sailing was struck by an enemy torpedo and went down in the Atlantic.  It was ten o’clock at night, and the wild waves flung their young victim back and forth in almost complete darkness.  Finally three men pulled young Jack up on their little life raft.  Immediately he asked, “Which way is America?” No whimpering, no begging for attention.  Just, “Which way is America?”  His imagination was gripped, not with the wind and the waves, but with where he was going.  Fear had no place in his concern, for his present plight was unimportant compared to his destination.
     We too, with the weight of cynical unbelief sucking us down in the crush of competition which would crowd us off the little raft we have found in the sea of life, in peril of temptation or tragedy, with the valley of shadows not far ahead—we pause in worship and take courage even as we ask which way is heaven.  We know there is a way because the Son of God came from thence and has returned to it down at the right hand of the throne of the Father.  Christ’s resurrection assures us that even death is not our goal but a gateway, not the end but an entrance, not a terminus but a thoroughfare.  We are on our way.  Today we pause for direction.  Which way is heaven? Within our hearts we hear the Son of God say, “I am the way—come, follow me.”

-Best Sermons,  Harper and Bros.; sermon: “The  First Day of the Week;” via THE SOWER, a weekly publication of the Arthur church of Christ, Arthur, IL. Ron Bartanen, who serves as minister and editor, may be contacted through the congregation's website: http://www.arthurchurchofchrist.com