[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 18/July/2021]
Picture three people arriving at a train station. We’ll call them travellers A, B and C.
Traveller A walks up to the platform. He gets onto the train, takes a seat and settles himself. Another passenger walks up to him and asks, “excuse me, but do you know where this train is heading to?” “No, I don’t actually” he says, “it looked good from the outside, so I thought I’d hop on.”
Traveller B knows where he wants to get to. He arrives on the platform and the chap next to him asks, “Oh, it seems like we’re headed for the same place. Do you know whether this is the right platform?”. Traveller B looks at him and says, “Oh I don’t worry about that. I’m convinced that they all lead to the same destination, so it doesn’t matter which train I get on”.
Traveller C walks up to the station with a few other work colleagues. They are off on a weekend break to a holiday resort, sponsored by the company. Their boss has paid for the trip and given them all tickets. Traveller C doesn’t really have much time for his boss, but hey, it’s a free weekend, so here he is. He and his work colleagues get on board, enjoy the journey and get to their destination. As they start to go into the resort, the attendant asks him for his ticket. He says he doesn’t have one. The attendant says that she is sorry, but she can’t allow him in without a ticket. She says that she knows the company boss had got tickets for all the employees. He says he never had much time for his boss, so he didn’t bother taking the ticket. He said he didn’t need his boss’s charity, so he thought he’d make his own way and sort out a ticket when he got to the resort. She tells him that unfortunately, this won’t be possible. The tickets were exclusively for people attending this weekend, which is why his boss had made sure he got one for each of them.
Fictional characters, yes, but that’s the tale for many in our world today. We’ll call the train life’s journey and the destination heaven. For traveller A, it’s all about enjoying the journey, but not giving a thought to where he’s headed. Traveller B knows where he wants to get to, but is mistaken when he says that any train he gets on will get him there. He is great danger of getting on the wrong train and ending up in a completely different place to where he hoped to be. Traveller C knows which train to get and where it is headed but has refused to use the ticket purchased for him, thinking he can get in by his own means, but then finds he is not allowed to enter the resort.
Jesus cares about our journey. He knows that things aren’t always smooth, and reassures us that He will never leave us, nor forsake us. He also cares about the destination. When we get there, we will find that our own tickets are worthless. For us to be accepted into God’s presence at the end of our journey, we need the ticket Christ paid for. He is the way, the truth and the life and no one gets to God the father except through him.
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Contributed by David Makanjuola; © the Author
