A few weeks ago I read the following in a Puritan prayer:
If you are the Way how can I be the end?
This is one of those lines I wish I’d read forty years ago; not that I would have incorporated it into my life then, but at least the seed would have been sown.
Last year Vickie planted some seeds in a germination tray and we waited for them to sprout. And we waited, and we waited…and yes…we waited some more. Finally one of them sprouted, Vickie transplanted it and we soon had a beautiful Moon Vine growing over our arbor. I suppose there were sixteen squares in the germination tray, but only one of those squares contained a seed that sprouted.
My early reading in Christ is like our Moon Vine seeds in the sense that it has taken a long time for some of the seeds to sprout, and then a long time for those sprouts to climb the arbor of life and blossom. Even though much of my early reading was focused on Christ as the Way and the End of life, I really didn’t get it; not really. Oh I could talk a good talk, and I think I meant the talk, I think I was sincere in the words, but I really didn’t get it – I was still the “end”, so how could He be the Way?
Back in those early years I read something by A.W. Tozer that compared our approach to Christ with our approach to our nation’s flag – a banner under which to live, band together, and enjoy a certain sense of mission and belonging. But Tozer pointed out that that isn’t Biblical Christianity – Biblical Christianity is knowing and obeying Jesus Christ as Lord of our individual lives and the life of the Church. Christ isn’t an ideal, He isn’t a banner, He isn’t a cause; He isn’t any of those things that might still allow us to retain our autonomy in some negotiated sense – we can’t negotiate with Jesus Christ, we must surrender to Him.
If I am the end how can Christ Jesus be the Way?
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