There’s a place that to me is magical and
mystical. It’s a place way up in the Appalachian Mountains, a
place filled with tall pine, birch and fir trees. A wide stream
filled with the coldest, clearest water you’ll ever want to touch flows
right through this place, and its banks are laden with rhododendron, a
flower of indescribable beauty. On all sides, mountains shoot up into
the sky as if they were ladders up into Heaven. And the place
always smells like Fall, like woodsmoke and apples and leather, the
kind of aroma where you inhale and it makes you lightheaded and giddy.
The place is called Bluebend. It’s located in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, and is situated at the intersection of Paradise and Heaven.
When I was a kid, Dad worked ten straight days and was then off four days. This meant that every other weekend, we were heading up into the mountains to this magical and mystical place. Growing up, I had a little globe and a map in my bedroom, and I would spend hours upon hours reading and imagining about these exotic places all over the universe. It was so fun to dream of going to Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France and the Netherlands. And it was exciting to think about going to Africa, to Rhodesia, Mozambique and Madagascar. I would then fantasize about hopping a ship to China and India, then crossing back over to South America to Brazil and to Peru and to Chile. To this day I fantasize about spending the summers in Santiago, Chile up in the Andes where it’s winter there when it’s summer here. And then, there was the ultimate fantasy: England. I would dream about going all over the British Isles in a Triumph Spitfire, driving up into York and to Wales and Ireland and then to the birthplace of my grandfather in Scotland. And I never stopped dreaming, especially about England, although there’s a part of me that doubts that I’ll ever get to go there.
But there’s one place I always go in my head when the world is rattling and life is hounding me and my nerves are fraying like yarn, and that’s to Bluebend. It’s where I spent my childhood; it’s where Jeanette and I spent our honeymoon. It’s a place I go to often, if only in my thoughts.
We all have a place like that—or at least I hope we all do: a place where it’s peaceful, a place where you feel safe, a place where every breath fills you with life.
There’s another place I always wanted to go, although it’s not a particularly safe place. But it is a magical place and it is a mystical place and it is a sacred place. It’s all those things because it’s the place where Jesus was born. It’s the place where Jesus walked and taught and healed. It’s the place where He bore the sins of the world. It’s the place where He was laid in a tomb that could not contain Him. It’s the place where Death and Hell intersected with Peace and Eternal Life.
It’s also the place where one day He had been teaching for hours to a crowd of about 10,000 people. Late in the morning, a few folks began noticing their bellies are growling. It is lunchtime, and they were way out in the country, far away from the market. What’s funny is that of all those 10,000 people, only one person remembered to pack a lunch. In a crowd filled with supposedly wise adults, the only one with enough foresight was a kid who had brought the fixin’s to make a fish sandwich. It was here on this hillside where this kid willingly gave what he had to Jesus. What he gave to Jesus is a good pattern for our giving as well. Jesus took what was given to Him; He blessed it, and broke it, then passed it out. And it was here where 5,000 adult men, and an additional 5,000 women and children, all shared the lunch that a single boy had packed. They all chowed down and they were all satisfied. Amazingly, enough leftovers were gathered to fill a boatload of baskets which were shared with the poor.
What happened to all those folks who had partaken of that prophetic picnic that day? What was going through their minds? These folks back then were no different than they are today: they knew a good thing when they saw it. They say to themselves, “Hey, there really IS such a thing as a free lunch!”
In addition to this, a good many of the 10,000 that day had seen Jesus do things that had never been done to disease and illness and injury: He had reversed them. People who had been blind from birth had their sight restored; quadriplegics got up off their cots and went leaping and doing the jitterbug and the frug and the watusi, and you can tell how dated I am. Schizophrenics who had had thousands of voices yelling at them were healed by the single voice of Jesus. All these things, which we call miracles, Jesus called signs because they pointed the way to God. The power was secondary to the power-giver.
It was after the feeding of the 10,000 that one group of people who had been following Jesus decided that this good thing should be institutionalized. They determined to take Jesus by force, if necessary, and to make Him king. What was true back then has been true throughout the ages and remains true to this day: there is a type of person who will follow Jesus for the free healthcare and the free lunch.
There was a second group of people who followed Jesus around. This was an assemblage of people who were fascinated by His teaching. They loved to hear Him teach because
they got their jollies by discussing such things. These were people who reveled in discussing philosophical constructs. These were people whose idea of an ultimate good time was sharing several bottles of Chardonnay and staying up until the wee hours of the morning arguing over epistemology—which is the theory of knowledge—and wrangling over ontology—which is the theory of being—and speculating over speculations and other esotery that most people don’t give a single thought to over the course of a decade.
A third group of people who followed Jesus around, and this was the group of people I like to call hyper-traditionalists, people who wanted to make sure that Jesus did not deviate from orthodox Judaism. These were the guys whose life’s work was to follow the Jewish Law and to, as my seminary Hebrew professor used to say, cross every “i” and to dot every “t.” They also wanted to make sure that everyone else did too. They were the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Scribes. These were people whose entire life was based on words and events that had happened back in the glory days, and their every breathing moment was built around restoring life to the good ol’ days.
But something happens with all three of these groups here in John 6. The first group, those interested in welfare and healthcare reform, comes to Jesus with their hands out. He asks them, “Are you here because you want Me or are you here because you want the free healthcare and the free-lunch?” As is true with so many, including, I would think, all of us here, there are times when it’s hard to get a straight answer out of people. So Jesus says, point-blank, “You seek Me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Don’t work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life.” At that statement, they realize that there really is no such thing as a free lunch; there’s actually work involved. They turn around and say, “Okay Jesus, give us a job description. What do we have to do to get this bread?” Jesus responds, “All you’ve got to do is to believe in Me.”
What sign do you give us? Those who practice behavioral science have written recently about a strange phenomenon in American culture. Put up a sign that reads, “Free Puppies,” and you will have to practically beg people to take them. Put up a sign that reads, “Puppies: $5.00,” and you’ll do a little bit better. What’s strange is that if you really want to move “them puppies” out, put up a sign that reads, “Puppies: $50.00 each,” and you’ll have people standing in line.
That’s the strange thing about the free lunch crowd. They want Jesus if He will give them free fish sandwiches. Barring that, they want Jesus if they have to pay through the nose, sweat, grunt and pay a high price for the lunch, but they cannot and will not do something as simple as believe in Him.
The second group of people, who are prepared to follow Jesus as long as He speaks in philosophical constructs, are people who believe that there is no such thing as a single way to Heaven. They are pluralists, syncretists who take a little bit of this and a little bit of that. But when Jesus says, “I am the Bread the came down out of Heaven. I AM the way, I AM the truth, I AM the life,” they point an accusing finger at Him and say, “Well, You’re not the ONLY way are You?” To which Jesus responds, “Well, DUH, yeah!” And so they join the no-longer free lunch crowd and walk away because they see Jesus as little more than a great philosopher, a superb thinker, a wonderful teacher. But Lord? Come on. Son of God? You’ve got to be kidding.
The third group of people, the traditionalists, goes spastic when Jesus calls Himself the Son of God. This just doesn’t fit into their template of the way things are done.
When I was in Portugal a couple of years ago, one of our hosts was telling of one of the funnier things that happened when Portugal joined the European Union several years ago. In some of the smaller towns further away from Lisbon, some Coke machines continued to only take the old Portuguese coins because the owners would not retool them to take the new Euro coins. I’ve always thought of the traditionalists like this. They like the way things were and can’t bring themselves to see that things can actually be improved upon. They only accept the old currency, and in the process they’re going broke and bankrupt.
So all three of these groups turn away from following Jesus. The free lunch crowd who either wants it free or expensive and aren’t prepared to pay the price of faith; the religious pluralists who can’t handle the fact that Jesus is who He says He is and demands obedience, and the traditionalists whose mind is stuck in a jar sitting on the shelf of a time thousands of years earlier.
After these folks make their exit, He comes to Peter and asks, “How about you? Are you leaving too?” Peter answers, “Lord to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of Eternal Life.”
Where else is there to go? “Where could I go but to the Lord?” the choir sang a little earlier.
Richard Fairchild tells a story about how at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, the sport of canoe racing was added to the list of international competitions. The team favored to take the gold medal in the four-man canoe race was from the United States team. A young man by the name of Bill Havens was one of the four.
As the time for the Olympics neared, it became evident that Bill's wife would give birth to her first child about the time that he would be competing in the Paris Games.
In 1924, there were no jets crossing the Atlantic in just a few hours, only post-Titanic ocean-going ships. Bill found himself in a quandary: should he go to Paris and risk not being at his wife's side when their first child was born? Or should he withdraw from the team and remain behind?
Bill's wife insisted that he go to Paris. After all, he had been training for this event for many years. It was to be the climax of a life-long dream. It certainly wasn’t an easy decision to make.
After a lot of soul searching, Bill decided to withdraw from the competition and be with his wife when their first child arrived. Bill deemed being at her side much more important than going to Paris in search of a dream.
To make a long story short, the United States four-man canoe team won the gold medal in Paris. Bill's wife was late in giving birth to her first child. She was so late that Bill would have had ample time to collect his gold and then get home in time for the birth.
Understandably, a lot of people shook their heads and said, “What a shame! He could have had the gold AND the baby.” In response, Bill said he had no regrets. After all, his commitment to his wife, being in that magical and mystical place with his wife and firstborn, was far more important then, and it still was now.
The story of Bill Havens is how one man paid a high price to be in the place where he would always go: to the side of his wife.
But here’s where things get neat, because the story of Bill Havens doesn’t end here. The child eventually born to Bill and his wife was a boy, whom they named Frank. Twenty-eight years later, in 1952, Bill received a cablegram from Frank. It was sent from Helsinki, Finland, where the1952 Olympics were being held. The cablegram read,
“Dad, I won. I'm bringing home the gold medal you lost while waiting for me to be born."
Frank Havens had just won the gold medal for the United States in the
canoe-racing event, a medal his father had dreamed of winning but never
did.
Some people go to where Jesus is, but only when they need Him for healing; they come out of desperation sometimes, but they aren’t seeking Jesus: they’re only seeking Jesus for what they can get out of Him.
Some people go to where Jesus and they love His words, but they turn around when He makes His claim on their lives as Lord.
So people go to where Jesus is and will follow Him as long as He fits their template and their tradition, but they turn around when He challenges them to take their faith further and into the future.
There’s a place to me that is magical and
mystical. It’s the place I go when I’m hungry, the place I go
when I need healing.
There’s a place to me that is mountainous, a place with the stream of truth running through it; it is a challenging place, a place where I am encouraged to climb that mountain in search of truth.
There’s a place to me where the past is present and takes me into the future. That place is the place where Jesus is, for wherever I am, He is. It’s the place where we always go because it’s a place within a place. Where else can we go but to the place we always go? Won’t you go there with me?