The theme of our worship this week is following the King, it means following Jesus Christ, or Christ Jesus; Christ means ‘King’.
What does it mean to follow Jesus? I sometimes think it’s like following Bear Grylls into a jungle that is infested with animals that will hurt us. The parallel, if that is too obscure, is that Bear Grylls never shirks away from danger, he always faces it and he overcomes it. Jesus never refused to face danger either, starting from the time that the people from his own town wanted to throw him over a cliff. Then throughout his ministry he had to face the persistent questioning by the Pharisees, always out to trip him up and get him to commit blasphemy and face the death penalty. Finally, of course there was his trial, scourging and crucifixion.
“Follow Me!”
Following the King isn’t the easiest task we are asked to undertake, even when most of us will never be faced with the kind of traumatic events that Jesus faced.
Nevertheless, there will be times when we are asked to bear burdens which seem too heavy to carry, loss of work, homelessness, children with difficulties, illness and death. All are tough, but all are part of life’s roadmap.
It is at this point of testing that we are asked to have faith. Jesus never ever promised that our life would always be easy. It is for some people, but not everybody escapes something that knocks the feet from under them. He did promise that if we follow Him, that He would be there alongside us: He said, “I will be with you always, even to the end of time”. Demonstrating that is the wonderful poem called “Footprints”:
One night a man had a dream. He dreamt that he was walking along a beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes of his life, for each scene he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, one of them belonged to him and the other belonged to the Lord.
When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that during the saddest times in his life there was only one set of footprints in the sand.
This really bothered him, and he questioned the Lord about it, “Lord, you said once I followed you, that you’d walk with me every step of the way. But I have noticed that it happened at the most troublesome times of my life that there was only one set of footprints in the sand. I don’t understand why when I needed you most you would leave me.”
The Lord replied, “My precious, precious child, I love you and would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you saw only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”