WHERE TWO WAYS MEET

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25173, 13 March 1943, Page 6

WHERE TWO WAYS MEET

Written for the Otago Daily Time#. By the Rev. Gardner Miller. One of the most interesting ways of reading the New Testament is to read between the lines. Some people read the New Testament for doctrine, others read it for fulfilment of prophesy, and while both have their merits I do not think either gives sq much joy as reading between the lines. You know what I mean. It is the kind of thing you do when you receive and read a letter. You picture the writer, you see with your mind’s eye the place he. or she is in, and your imagination and your knowledge of the writer give meanings to the written word that are not seen on the surface. Every lover reads between the lines. Every lonely exile reads between the lines when the Home mail brings a letter. So with the New Testament. It is a letter, a letter from Christ to you. Read it slowly, picture the scene, see Christ among the words, and slowly there will dawn upon you the sense that you are behind the scenes, as it were, and being made acquainted with intimate things. There are several incidents in the New Testament in which this method —and I hold it is the best method — reveals meanings.and helps that otherwise escape the reader. One of them is where Jesus, at the beginning of the last week in His early life, made arrangements for the use of an ass. You will find the story in the eleventh chapter of Mark. Read it slowly, using your imagination, and you will come to see that there is more in it than a private arrangement with a friend whose name has never been divulged. Who were those men standing at the corner, where two ways met? What was their connection with Jesus? How was the password arranged? Immediately these and many other questions arise as soon as you read between the lines. And when you lift up your head and think of what is happening in old Europe at this time, you feel that time has been bridged, for you see something of the same movement going on in both places. I mean, an underground movement. Both Palestine then and Europe now groaned under a dictator; both resented it and in both place! all kinds of underground organisations were set up to overthrow the tyrant and free the people. Did those men at the corner and also the owner of the ass belong to such a movement, and did they see in Jesus a political as well as a religious leader (as His own disciples did)? Ido not know, but reading between the lines it is evident that there was some agreement between Jesus and these unknown friends that must not be allowed to come to the notice of the authorities. A Tryst Of this we are sure, a tryst was made (to use a lovely old Scottish term) and a password arranged. And the place of the tryst was where two ways met. Does not that bring memories? To arrange a meeting with someone who is dear to you at some place where you will not be distracted! And when you travel back along the road of memory how you recall the trysting places and what you said and what promises you made! I remember how many years ago I had a longing to sit in the hall (the old Tent Hall, Glasgow) on the very seat where 1 gave my heart to Christ. 1 was not happy until I did it. And not only did I sit where I first met Christ as my Saviour. I had the privilege of preaching in the old hall, and that night over a dozen broken men and women found salvation. And so when I read in this story of the tryst that Christ made with His friends I picture to myself all my trysting places with Him. I am sure of this, that you cannot grow in grace and knowledge unless you have a private arrangement to meet Christ, not occasionally, but every day. Not to keep the tryst is to find your love growing cold. I am certain that the reason why there are so many stale, ineffective Christians in our churches is due to the serious omission of the daily meeting with Christ. It is quite possible, too, that you can be very busy in Christian work and at the same time be very careless about keeping at a high level your spiritual life. The result is always joylessness and a lack of power. Have a place and a time (and a password, if you can) to meet your Lord. I am sure that it is not without spiritual significance that the place of meeting was where two ways met. The very words reveal the necessity of A Choice And more than we can realise at the time, do our choices matter, You meet Christ at the trysting place and He asks of you a definite piece of service. At once you are at the cross-roads, where two ways meet, and you have to make a choice. As soon as the service is asked of you, as soon as He makes a claim upon youn time and talents, immediately you picture in your mind how the choice, if you make a choice in His favour, is going to affect your future, your job, your home, and your associates. Is that not so? I cannot find fault with anyone who carefully measures the cost of a choice, but I would say very definitely that the longer you take to choose for Christ the greater is the likelihood that you will not make His service your choice, but will slip into self-interest. Christ loves the man and woman who will toss all self-interest aside and take the risks of following Him anywhere. Are you at a place where two ways meet? Are you swithering what to do? Listen! Christ is depending upon you. Don’t let Him down.