Pilgrimage (22 page)

The Mount of the Beatitudes

The Church of the Beatitudes perches like a queen on top of a hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Far below us, the lake looks serene, dotted with a half dozen boats. According to tradition, this is the mountainside where Jesus taught the lessons we call the Sermon on the Mount, including the Beatitudes. It’s easy to visualize Jesus seated here beneath an azure sky, His followers spread out on the slope, which acted as a natural amphitheater to amplify His voice. It’s quiet here, miles from the nearest city, and the church’s beautifully landscaped grounds seem to invite prayer and meditation. Our guide reads portions of the sermon to us, then invites us to find a spot to sit alone for a while and contemplate Jesus’ words.

I choose a low stone wall beneath a tree and sit facing the Sea of Galilee, the sun warming my face. I try to hear Jesus’ words the way His original audience did, as if for the first time. I’m especially struck by the portion of the sermon where Jesus gives the Old Testament Law a new spin: You have heard it said do not murder, but I say don’t even harbor anger in your heart. You have heard it said do not commit adultery, but I say don’t even let your heart long for someone who isn’t your spouse. You have heard it said love your neighbor, but I say love your enemies and pray for them (see Matthew 5). Jesus raised the bar even higher for us, saying that outward conformity to the Law isn’t enough: “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). It’s what’s inside our heart that counts.

This new, harder standard is part of the new covenant that God made with us through Christ: “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. . . . They will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest” (Jeremiah 31:33–34). The Pharisees counted 613 Old Testament laws that Jews had to keep in order to be considered righteous. As impossible as this seemed, at least they could compare their behavior to a standard and see whether or not they measured up. The rich young ruler could sincerely assure Jesus that he had faithfully kept all of the laws since his youth. But Jesus is saying that keeping the letter of the Law isn’t enough. The outward conformity that the Pharisees demanded isn’t enough. It’s what’s in your heart that matters. The rich young ruler was outwardly obedient, but in his heart he clung to his wealth. Jesus’ words undoubtedly shook up a lot of people.

I can look at the Ten Commandments and say that “technically” I haven’t broken any of them. But using the standard that Jesus gives, I have probably broken all ten of them! I’ve been explosively angry with people at times, assaulting them with vicious, killing words. And what about the command not to covet? I would have to stop watching TV ads and reading magazines and window-shopping at the mall in order to stop coveting. I would have to stop jealously comparing my friends’ lives and ministries with my own. How can I ever measure up to Christ’s standards of purity of heart?

God wants me to follow His rules out of a deep, heartfelt love for Him, out of gratitude for His grace, out of a desire to please Him more than myself. God wants a relationship with me, not rule-keeping. He sent His Holy Spirit into my life to show me what’s in my heart and to convict me—if I really want to hear it, if I’m willing to let Him peer inside all the hidden places. Do I really want to be changed from the inside out, or do I consider myself already good enough?

I grow uncomfortable as I ponder these unsettling thoughts—and it’s not from the rocky perch I’m sitting on. It occurs to me that King David, who broke at least two of the Ten Commandments when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and then conspired to kill her husband, was called “a man after God’s own heart.” Maybe it’s because David turned to God for mercy and was willing to pray, “Search me, O God, and know my heart . . . See if there is any offensive way in me” (Psalm 139:23–24). David is commended throughout Scripture as a man of God, yet Jesus condemned the “holy men” of His age, the Pharisees and teachers of the Law, saying, “You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence” (Matthew
23:25). He desires that His laws be written on our hearts, not tallied up in rule books and ledgers.

At last, our guide calls for our group to regather. The sun feels even warmer now as he leads us on a hike down the sloping hillside toward the Sea of Galilee. I continue to pray and search my heart as I go. The path winds through a leafy banana grove, and we see bunches of ripening bananas, still attached to the tree, that have been sealed in plastic bags to protect them. If only our hearts could be sealed that way against sin. I begin to hum an old hymn as I walk, singing the words in my mind:

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it;

Seal it for Thy courts above.

My knees feel wobbly from descending the steep slope when we finally reach the lakeshore, some forty minutes later. We’ve come to a narrow, rock-strewn beach, the traditional place where Christ appeared to His disciples after His resurrection and cooked a breakfast of fish. Peter and the others had returned to their old profession of fishing. What else could Peter do? He had denied that he even knew Jesus and must have thought he no longer deserved to be His disciple. Peter had been disappointed in the way things had turned out, thinking he had signed up for a rebellion against Rome, that the Messiah would rule over a physical kingdom, and that he would hold a position of honor. Yet as Peter and Jesus ate breakfast on the beach that morning, two things happened between them: Peter repented and accepted Jesus’ forgiveness for his failures and denials, and then he accepted Jesus’
commission to be His disciple again. This time he would follow God’s plans for the kingdom, not his own.

I sink down on the sand to pray. I’m as guilty as Peter was of following my own plans, not God’s. I had decided what my life as a disciple should look like, what my role in the kingdom should be, and then I became angry and depressed when things didn’t turn out the way I thought they should. I’ve been careful to be a good little Christian on the outside while sometimes allowing sin to fester in my heart.

I ask God to forgive me for coveting, for jealously looking at my friends who have their children and grandchildren living nearby and wanting what they have instead of what I have been given. I ask God to forgive me for not trusting Him, not embracing change. My greatest sin has been unbelief, doubting the goodness of God, doubting that the changes He brought into my life will be for my good, and not for harm.

I confess my sin to Him. I accept His forgiveness. Then I accept the role of His disciple once again, no matter where it may take me in the future. I embrace the changes that God has brought into my life. Then, like Peter, I stand up and brush the sand off my clothes. I walk away from the beach, forgiven. And I begin again.

Walking on Water

From the safety of our vehicle parked on a mountaintop, we watch as a sudden thunderstorm rumbles toward the Sea of Galilee. Lightning flashes, black clouds tumble and roll, thunder booms. Within minutes, icy sheets of rain are lashing our windows as the wind rocks the vehicle. A group of hikers, fleeing to their car, have difficulty standing upright. The gale
snatches a woman’s umbrella, sucking it inside out, reducing it to a worthless tangle of metal and cloth. The storm has descended so quickly that one minute we were looking down at the tranquil sea, admiring the view, and the next minute we were running for cover. I’ve read in Scripture about sudden storms on the Sea of Galilee, storms that Jesus miraculously calmed, but now I understand how seasoned fishermen like Peter, James, and John could have been caught by surprise out on the open water.

In a storm like this one, Peter walked on water. It was also in the dark of night. Why not give water-walking lessons on a sunny day with calm seas? All of the disciples could have joined in the fun. Crowds of sightseers could have watched from shore, marveling at the miracle. Peter’s non-believing friends and relatives finally would have understood why he’d chosen to abandon the family fishing business to follow a wandering, homeless rabbi. Instead, darkness obscured the disciples’ vision, fear filled their hearts. They’d been rowing all night, expending great effort, and still were far from shore. Waves threatened to swamp the boat, drowning all of them.

Then, out of the wind and darkness, Jesus appeared, striding calmly across the surface of the lake. At first the disciples were terrified, but Jesus assured them, “It is I. Don’t be afraid.” I’m not sure what came over Peter at that moment, but he boldly replied, “Lord, if it’s you . . . tell me to come to you on the water.”

Jesus said, “Come” (see Matthew 14:22–32).

Ships and lakes were part of Peter’s everyday world. In his lifetime, he probably had fallen out of boats, jumped out of boats, or been pushed out of boats countless times, and each time he had experienced the same sinking result. But
now, while his eleven friends sat shivering in the stern, Peter decided to leave his comfort zone, ignore his instincts, forget everything he’d learned from experience, and step out of the boat on Jesus’ command. In the middle of a storm. At night. And the moment he realized what he’d just done, and he saw the wind and the waves, he panicked.

I understand how Peter felt after he stepped over the side of the boat and onto the tossing sea. I have felt the same heart-stopping moment of panic, that sinking feeling when you want to turn back but realize that it’s much too late. After my first book was published, the leader of our church’s Coffee Break Bible Study invited me to give a speech to the group. Of course I declined, assuring her that public speaking was not in my nature. I am perfectly suited to being a writer, holing up in my office for days at a time with only my imaginary characters to keep me company. Past experience in required speech classes in school had produced tearful, rubber-kneed blubbering on my part. I could not, would not, give a speech.

Then my cheerleader-friend, Cathy, heard about it. I call her a cheerleader because of her friendly, outgoing personality—the opposite of my introverted one. She is superb at encouraging the people she loves with spiritual pep talks. “You’re a writer! You can easily write a speech,” she gushed. Of course I can
write
a speech. It’s
giving
a speech in front of real people that’s the problem. It’s a testimony to Cathy’s powers of persuasion that I finally agreed.

I don’t remember how that first speech went or what I said, but I do recall consuming fistfuls of antacids. Afterward, the Coffee Break leader quietly gave my name and phone number to other area leaders, and before long I was being asked to speak regularly. It didn’t get any easier with practice. In fact,
the stomach-churning, nausea-producing effects of public speaking would make an effective weight-loss plan.

Roll ahead a few years, and one day the president of the International Coffee Break organization called to ask me to be a keynote speaker at their annual convention. Again, my friend Cathy talked me into it—after I made her promise to come to the convention with me.

On the day of the speech, we went to the auditorium a few hours ahead of time so the stage crew could run a sound check. Cathy watched from the wings as I walked out onto the stage and stood at the podium. I looked out into the theater, beyond the glow of the stage lights, and saw row after row of empty seats. Not dozens or hundreds of seats but thousands of them. I imagined them filled with people in a few hours and my knees went weak. The spotlights began to spin. If I hadn’t gripped the podium I would have fallen over. I couldn’t do this! I couldn’t speak before an audience of more than two thousand people. What was I doing here? Why had I ever agreed to speak? I understood exactly how Peter must have felt after he stepped over the side of the boat.

“Lynn!”
A booming voice called to me out of the darkness. I hoped it was the voice of God, calling me home to heaven, but it wasn’t. “Lynn, could you please say something so we can check the microphone levels?”

How could I speak? My lungs felt as if I’d fallen from a tree and had the wind knocked out of me. Cheerleader Cathy hurried over with the Bible she carries in her purse and pushed it into my shaking hands. “Here, read something,” she whispered. I opened it at random, drew an asthmatic breath, and began to read from the Psalms. It helped to be looking down at the page instead of out at the endless rows of seats. The
familiar words of Scripture eased my panic long enough to finish the sound check. But reading in an empty auditorium was one thing—how would I ever deliver a speech before a packed house later tonight? I was in over my head and about to drown. I had come close to drowning once before in Tilson Lake when I was in the eighth grade. The breathless, heart-stopping panic I experienced back then had felt exactly like this. Unless God performed a miracle, I couldn’t possibly walk out onto this stage in a few hours and give a coherent speech.

When the sound check ended, Cathy grabbed my arm and towed me back to our hotel room. She closed the door and pulled me to my knees beside one of the beds, saying “We need to pray!” Cathy did all the praying. I was too incoherent with fear to utter a sound.

The next few hours passed in a blur. We dressed for the event, went to dinner with the organizers—although I couldn’t eat a bite of it—and returned to the auditorium for the program. “I’ll be praying,” Cathy said as she left me to take her seat in the audience. I felt as though I was drowning again as the leaders escorted me to a room backstage to pray with me. I didn’t hear a word they said. With my mind whirling and my pulse throbbing in my ears, I silently cried out to God, the same way I had cried out to my friends on the shore of Tilson Lake: “Help! Help me!”