Out Our Way:

Mark 10:32-34

Out our way, we find cattle trails don’t always go in a straight line, yet cows seem to know that all that matters is that they get where they are going and do what they have to do to get there. Ranchers and farmers know this, too — and sometimes the way they have to travel is not very easy or pleasant.

I, for one, rejoice every winter when its 30-below outside and another “Alberta Clipper” is roaring across the plains that while I have cowboyed a bit, I have always only been a part-timer wanna be. I don’t have to be out there at 3 a.m. in February pulling a calf. But come the spring when the calves are fattening up and growing and the herd is healthy, those fellows seem to think it was worth it. You never see that part of cowboying in the movies.

When Charlie and I would ride out on the Tiger Ridge to check cows, we sometimes had to get over a ridge. But as Charlie showed me, sometimes the only way up is by going down. The slope was too steep, the rocks too loose, the arroyo too wide to jump. So he and Jet would lead Goliath and me down the slope and sometimes even in what seemed the wrong direction to get to where we could get up and over. He knew what he was doing and I learned to trust him.

In the text above, Jesus was leading the disciples to Jerusalem and the world to salvation, but as He told them, the way up began by going down.

“The Messiah must suffer many things,” He told them. They would go to Jerusalem where He would be arrested, beaten and finally put to death in the most horrible manner yet devised by human beings. Yet this was the way of salvation and redemption — the only way, and He was willing and determined to take it for our sake.

Like many people today, the disciples couldn’t understand why it had to be this way. They could not grasp why the only way up was first to go down. Few of us can even today when we know the rest of the story. But just as I learned to trust Charlie, so we learn to trust God. It may not make sense — but it is the way and it will get us where we are trying to go.

It is almost Christmas, and a time of celebration and joy. It is the beginning of the story — the part we all love. But it is not the whole story. As we remember the birth of Christ we also need to remember why He came. Of all the gifts given and recieved, there is none greater, more precious, or more costly than this Child who came to be one of us, show us the Way, and then open the doors of Heaven with His own suffering and death. Celebrate Bethlehem — but remember that Calvary is just up the road. Jesus knew that from the start and accepted that reality. He came down so that we might go up. That’s the rest of the Christmas story.

That’s how much He loves you and me — and that neighbor who drives you up the wall. What greater Christmas gift could there be?

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John Bruington and Goliath serve at First Presbyterian Church of Havre. Their first book, “Out Our Way: Theology Under Saddle,” is available at Amazon.com.