Our team was blessed with a group of American missionaries at church this past Sunday. This meant, not only were we able to have a fluent conversation with them afterwards, but we were able to understand the entire sermon! You have no idea how exciting this is until you have sat through many sermons in a foreign language catching only words here and there. Anyway, one of the missionaries was telling a story that left me with a very powerful visual. There was a man who worked on the railway. His job was to raise and lower the bridge as boats or trains needed to pass by. This man also had a son who came with him to work one day. Things had been going as normal until he heard a train whistle in the distance. This was his signal to let down the bridge for the train to pass over the river. As he looked up for the train, he noticed that his young son was playing in the gears of the machine. The man was instantly forced to make a choice as the train sped towards the bridge: save his son and the train would crashm killing 400 passengers, or to lower the bridge to save the the 400 and his son would be crushed in the gears. Being torn between his decisions, he lowered the bridge, saving the 400 and killing his son. As the train passed by the man, he looked at the passengers, to see if they had witnessed the sacrifice he had just made. Rather than sympathetic looks and cries, he found the passengers carrying on with conversation, laughing, reading books and just staring out the window. The passengers had no idea what had just been sacrificed for them. Hearing this story, really moved me. How could a father sacrifice his son for strangers? Yet, this is exactly the story of the Gospel. A son sacrificed so that others could live. And even worse is that often I feel we are like the passengers on the train. Passing by, not realizing the sacrifice that has just been paid for our lives. I sat in my seat wondering, how does Jesus see me reacting to his sacrifice? Am I talking with others, or sleeping? Or am I looking out the window in recognizing what has happened, thanking him for what he’s done?
