The Chasm and the Bridge

Then she came and knelt before Him, saying, Lord, help me. But He answered and said, It is not right to take the children’s bread and cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord; yet the little dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table.

These verses from Matthew 15 resound with the echoes of a great gulf between us and Almighty God. In Lent, it behoves us to keep that gulf in our consciousness because it is the purpose of Lent to help us to cross it.

We know that God created us in His own image – we are told that no less than five times in the Book of Genesis alone, and therefore, in the beginning there was no gulf between us and God. Such a thing was quite impossible. The gulf came with the fall, that supreme tragedy of mankind, when we, through the disobedience of Eve and the foolish complicity of Adam created that chasm, giving mankind the awful knowledge of the difference between good and evil. Awful knowledge because, in the words of the serpent, your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

And so that knowledge became the curse of the human condition, because unlike God we lack the power to do only what is good and reject always what is evil.

David Lloyd George once said, “You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps”. He was a Welshman, who, like many of his race had a way with words – and he was right. But mankind could not take the one big leap to cross that chasm. Almighty God had to do it for us and in His love that is exactly what He did do.

God sent His Son to redeem us and to bridge the gulf between us and God. The bridge is in the shape of a cross and it is stained to its core with the precious blood of the Lamb of God. The bridge shines with divine light all the way across, the light which guides Christians to place one foot securely in front of the other, one step at a time. At the far end, the light is brightest of all and in that light our Saviour waits, urging us too keep our eyes locked on our heavenly goal.

At the near end, at the foot of the Cross, is a gate, a very narrow gate which all are shown at least once, but for which many never find the key. The gate is unlocked with the key of repentance, without which we will never pass through the gate to set foot on that bridge and begin the journey along the narrow way.

Once through the gate, one other thing is needed, as the Canaanite woman showed. We need utter faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The bridge is not resting on solid ground – it is crossing a chasm. On each side of the narrow wood the chasm yawns with fear filled darkness in which lies the wickedness of this world. If we take our eyes off that distant, most glorious light, we may slip back into that darkness.

If we feel that happening, let us remember the example of the Canaanite woman, fall to our knees, and cry, Lord, help me. She was driven by her love for her sick daughter and Jesus taught her faith. Whatever drives us first to Jesus, He will do likewise for us. Perhaps we will have to content ourselves with the crumbs under the table, at least for a time. But how wonderful those crumbs are when we remember under whose table they fall.

If there has been one day in this Lenten season when we have not uttered the cry of the Canaanite woman, Lord, help me – let us make sure there is not another such day between now and Easter morning. It is the Cross of Jesus Christ which crosses the chasm between us and God. It is His mercy which leads us to it and gently sets our first foot upon it. It is His glorious light which keeps us on it and guides us along it.

Let us begin and end every day with the same cry, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me.

Peter Jardine+

Lent II, 2008