Hello,
I’m back. After
two weeks of tromping up and down ancient tells, skating along original Roman
streets, wandering through the extravagant tombs of civilizations dating back
2000 years, transversing city gates built 1500 BC, standing at certain and
uncertain sites of Jesus’ life, slinking through cavernous water system
tunnels, discovering the altars and temples of pagan gods, rubbing shoulders
with people of unfamiliar cultures…..all in sunny 60 and 70 degrees weather in
the middle of January….I am back!
What I learned and what I experienced could fill a year’s
worth of Bungee Cords, but lest I bore you with an endless travel log,
something happened to me early on in my travels that opened my eyes to
something that I have always known, but never really took to heart.
I am not a fan of “touristy” things, so the idea of hopping
on a forty-foot passenger boat and circle around the Sea of Galilee seemed a
part of the trip that I might have easily foregone had it not been on the group
itinerary. So, I, along with the other 42 members of our contingent and a group
of people from India set sail out to sea (the Sea of Galilee is not really a
sea…it is actually a small/medium size lake, small enough to look across it and
see all the shoreline). The sail
started off with the raising of the American Flag accompanied by the playing of
the National Anthem, and like wise the Indian Flag and anthem. (A touch of touristry to me, but not
all.) As was all of our days,
sunny and beautiful, we motored our way upon the Sea, feeling the waves and the
wind upon our boat as Jesus might have.
(Actually our engine powered boat that was twice as long as Jesus’
boats, and much heavier and stable set us a bit apart from Jesus’ rides on the
Sea of Galilee, but we were out on the lake, and I have to admit it was kind of
cool.)
As it happened I was sitting in the front of the boat and
three people whom I had never met made their way to the front, too. Three natives of India, all in their
20’s, two women and a man. One of
the women had a camera, and she gave it to the man, asking him to take a
picture of her and the other woman as they stood by the bow of the boat. He raised the camera to his eye,
snapped off a couple of pictures and handed it back to the woman, and as he did
so, he asked them to take a picture of him. (Of course this was all happening
in a language of which I had no understanding.) So, the two women stepped back, and as they did, he took a
seat next to me, and he put his arm around my shoulder. Although this shoulder hug may have
been of little surprise to people of his culture…it came as quite a surprise to
me. My smile may have shown a bit
of shock to it, but nevertheless, the woman snapped the picture of the two of
us.
The picture taken, the man took his arm from my shoulder and
said in broken English, “Christian, yes?”
“Yes, I am a Christian,” I replied. I tried with little success to find out
more about him, but the language barrier was too great.
When I got off the boat, I knew that I would never again see
this man whom I had never seen before….but his companionship would stay with me
forever….a companionship whose only glue was our shared God-given name,
“Christian.”
That encounter opened my eyes to the same unshatterable
companionship that I so often overlook with those whom I regularly see and know
who likewise bear the same God-given name, “Christian”. Living in a world that is quick to
point out differences in order to divide….sometimes I think it is to divide and
conquer….to isolate and devastate….that man’s arm around my shoulder seemed
like the arm of Jesus….after all, it was only Jesus that held us together.
As you walk into any church, you will note that in it is a
rather rag-tag, conglomerate of people who are united with a glue that nothing
in the world can dissolve: the blood of Jesus. So, while the winds of the sea of Galilee still have tuffed
my hair, let me invite you to church this weekend so that you, too, may feel
the arm of Jesus resting upon your shoulder, uniting you with him and all who
bear his name, “Christian”, in a solidarity of unity that no fear, no force,
and no foe can sever.
“Christian, yes”.
“Yes!”
Have a great week,
God’s grace and peace,
Pastor Jerry Nuenberger
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