A PATH THROUGH MÉRIDA
The city of Mérida, in the Andes Mountains of Venezuela,
is built on a narrow plateau that sits like a castle high above several rivers
that seem to surround it like a moat. It is a college town. The Universidad de Los
Andes is there. During the years that we lived in that country, the university
had about 30,000 students.
College towns usually have a culture all of their own,
but this was especially true in Venezuela where both student and faculty
protests and strikes were very common and where the strikes would frequently close down an entire town or even a city. The kids learned it from the earliest
grades. It was not uncommon for us to see first and second graders in our own
town carrying placards along with the rest of the students of a school,
protesting some sort of “injustice”.
Mérida, because of the geography of the mountainous
region where it is built, is a long and quite narrow city. There are really
only three roads that lead through the length of it. The streets were not built
for the amount of traffic they needed to bear when the city grew to its present
size, and the downtown congestion was common.
One day we had to drive the length of the city to return
to our own home in western Venezuela. Again, things may have changed since we
lived there a couple of decades ago, but at that time, there were seldom
bypasses to cities in Venezuela. One had to simply drive through the heart of
town and hope for the best.
As we approached the city of Mérida, I suppose we should
have been immediately suspicious that things were not right when a police
barricade blocked off the first main street that we wanted to take.
However, this was not that uncommon. Streets seemed to
be almost routinely blocked off for one reason or another, and without further
thought, we proceeded to the second street. When we arrived at that second
passage-way, we saw that there were cars on it, and they seemed to be moving
along.
Well…the word moving may be a little misleading, because
once we got in the line of traffic, we realized that they were mostly stopped,
bumper to bumper. Nevertheless, since we thought we might have no other choice,
we also joined in. With that, in the spirit of driving in the cities in Latin
America or perhaps anywhere in the world, we hoped for the best.
We expected the line to move slowly, but as we sat in
our car on this hot day, this one became agonizingly slow. As we tediously
proceeded, I noticed that the cross streets were absolutely abandoned. In fact,
there were very few shops open. No cars were parked along the sides. Something
was not normal in the city of Mérida.
As we got nearer to the university and the downtown
area, I could really tell something was up. The only street that had any cars
on it was the one on which we were stuck in the traffic. The city looked
abandoned with all the roll-down steel window coverings over the store windows
(for some reason they call these security doors “Santa Marias”), and only a few
university students standing idly about on the streets.
I was getting tired of sitting in the car going almost
nowhere, and I saw a nice shady place where I could park our car on one of the
side streets. I decided to get out and see if we could find out what was going
on. Sticking my arm out of my window to try to get the other drivers to make a
gap for me, I cut across a line of cars and made my way to our shady spot.
Vivian, our two boys that were with us, and I got out of
the car and began walking toward where we saw a group of students standing in
the middle of the intersection. As we got closer, our sons began to complain. “The
air is stinging my eyes and burning my throat,” they said. Vivian and I really
could not sense anything.
We approached the students. “What’s going on?” I asked.
“We are having a protest,” one of them told me.
“Eight days ago, during a party, a business student was
urinating on the street,” he told me matter-of-factly, as if no one could
possibly see any offense in this. “A policeman told him to stop, but how can
you stop urinating once you’ve started? So the policeman pushed him and the
student hit his head against some cement. Today he died in the hospital.”
Our boys again began to complain of burning eyes and
throat. My eyes also began to burn. Here the air did seem toxic. There was
smoke in the air that had a chemical smell to it
Because of the emergency, the National Guard had taken
over the city. This was the National Guard from the old days – not the National
Guard from the present day. These days the country of Venezuela is in most ways
a failed state, ruled by the dictatorial president Maduro, who uses the
National Guard to protect and uphold his failed regime. But when we lived there,
it was back in the nineties and early two thousands. At that time the
government was still more or less democratic in form, and the National Guard
had the role of simply helping to keep peace in the country.[1]
From where we were standing on the street in Mérida, we
could see guardsmen at the intersections on down the line of the street. Students
were milling around or standing in small groups of three or four, but at the
moment, everything seemed peaceful enough. The streets in this part of town
were littered with bricks, shattered windows and broken pieces of cement. Here
and there were black circles of the last remnants of burning tires.
“Is the street open?” I asked him. I was now standing on
a corner along the third and last passage-way through the city.
“It’s open,” he responded, “but some students are still
throwing rocks at cars in protest. We just finished with a confrontation with
the National Guard and are taking a little break, but we think we will start up
again about 3:00.”
I guess even protesters take their siesta.
Wisely or foolishly, I decided that if we were to get
through the city, now would be the time. It was relatively calm, and perhaps
before the violence started up again we would have passed the dangerous area. We
returned to our car. The street that was littered with rubble was empty of
traffic, and I thought now, during the eye of the storm, we could dodge the
pieces of concrete, hope that no one throws anything too damaging to our car,
and quickly get through.
I backed out of my shady spot, put the car into gear,
and started down the street where I had been talking to the students. As I
began however, the street seemed not so peaceful as it had been moments before.
A group of about 30 students suddenly began running at full speed toward our
car. We thought we might be in for an attack, but I noticed that not many
students were holding rocks. Nor did their expression show defiance. They had
more of a look of fright. They seemed not to be attacking, but fleeing.
Then we saw from what they were fleeing. A huge (it
seemed huge) rubber tired National Guard tank was coming from one of the side
streets. Two guardsmen were standing on the sides firing tear gas into the
groups of students.
“Quick, roll up your windows!” Vivian told all of us. No
wonder the air had seemed toxic.
The tank turned onto the same street on which we had
hoped to make our escape. The soldiers turned the tank to go down the street in
the same direction that we were going. They were in front of us. After stopping
and shooting a couple of tear gas canisters into a small group of students, the
tank then quickly began to head down our street, dispersing the students as it
went. Seeing my opportunity, I sped up our car and stayed on the tail of the
tank. No one would dare to throw rocks at us when were right behind the
National Guard tank!
In retrospect, I do not know why that National Guardsmen decided at that moment to barrel down that street throwing tear gas
canisters. There were no real gathering of students at that moment, and the few
that were there had been simply standing around and talking.
So, with the Venezuelan National Guard opening a path
for us, we quickly made it through the city. I felt like a halfback carrying a
football and following a lineman as he plowed through the defense, opening a
hole in the opposing line for me.
The Red Sea Crossing
It also reminded me of something else.
Imagine what it must have been like for Moses and the
Israelites as they were fleeing before a pursuing Egyptian army, but had to
come to a halt as they stood at the banks of the Red Sea. With the Egyptians
still bearing down on them from behind, in military terms, the Israelites were
trapped. They were hemmed in by highlands on either side of them and by the sea
in front of them. The Egyptian army coming from behind had every advantage.
They were warriors and they were armed. The Israelites were not soldiers. They
were former brick-making slaves and now were simply fleeing refugees. It would
seem as if it would be a rout.
Except of course, for one thing. As the Israelites
trembled in their sandals, facing what they saw as certain defeat or perhaps
even annihilation, Moses said to them, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation
of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see
today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you. You have only to
be silent.”[2]
Of course you know what happened. Moses raised his staff
and the sea in front of them parted so that the Israelites could pass. This
great event has been depicted frequently in movies and explained in writings. I
am not sure how it actually occurred. The Bible speaks of a strong east wind that
blew all during the night that swept back the sea. Some archeologists have
identified a rather shallow place in the Red Sea where they say that a
sufficiently strong wind could conceivably do this, and where they believed the
Israelites may have crossed.
Perhaps. But the Bible also says that as the Israelites
passed through the sea, the waters were like “a wall” to them on their right
hand and on their left. Whatever the case, the Israelites were able to traverse
the sea. When the pursuing Egyptians entered into the seabed, God first caused
their chariot wheels to swerve so that they drove only with great difficulty. When
the charioteers finally realized the hand of God was in what was happening to
them, and then tried instead to retreat back to Egypt, God sent the waters back
upon them so that they all perished. True to the words of Moses, God had fought
for the Israelites.
“Your Presence With Us”
At a critical point during the exodus, when things were
not going well at all, Moses said to God, “If your presence does not go with
us, do not lead us up from here.”[3]
I have never been in a situation even remotely similar
to the one that the Israelites faced at that time, but this has also been my
prayer several times in my life when the Lord was putting me in an entirely new
and unfamiliar situation to work with people I did not know, and in a land and culture
that I did not know. Just as Moses spoke not only on his own behalf, but also
for the benefit of all his people, I have sometimes been directed by God to
bring my wife and my family into situations that were unknown to us, and
insecure.
“If your presence does not go with us, do not take us
from our home,” I would pray to God.
We look for security in every situation. It is
understandable. We desire to know the exact circumstances that we will
encounter and have whatever resources in place that will be sufficient for any
and every eventuality. However, if we know that God is calling us to do
something, then circumstances mean nothing. It is the call of God that means
everything.
If my experience can be any indication, never will we
have the complete security of the situation laid out before us before we begin
a new work. At least this is not true in our walk of faith. Nevertheless, if we
know that God is calling us to a work, there comes a time when we must simply
set out. There comes a point when we must begin, based not on what we know or
do not know, but based on faith.
I cannot imagine that the Israelites did not have some
questions or doubts when they stepped into the dried-up seabed with the wall of
water both on their right and on their left. But so it is with the walk of
faith. We step out of what is familiar and secure, and into what is promised. What
we are stepping into is unknown, but we wait to see what God will do.
The Jordan River Crossing
At the other end of the Exodus, as the Israelites were
about to enter the Promised Land, there was another water barrier that they
needed to cross. This one was the Jordan River.[4]
At the time of the year that the Israelites needed to cross it, the river was
in flood state, making the crossing all the more treacherous.
Their former leader Moses had died sometime earlier,
leaving his first lieutenant Joshua in charge. Before this crossing of the
Jordan, Joshua sent the officers to circulate around the camp to instruct the
people as to the details of how the crossing was to occur:
As soon as you see the
Ark of the Covenant of the Lord being carried by the priests, then you shall
set out from your place and follow it. However, be sure to maintain a distance
between you and the ark, about 3,000 feet. Do not come near the ark, in order
that you may know the way you shall go, for you have not passed this way before.
The priests took up the Ark of the Covenant, carried by
its two long poles, and started out before the people. When the feet of the
priests stepped into the water, the River Jordan stopped its flow at a point
some distance up river. The riverbed at the point of the ark became dry, at
least dry enough to walk on.
As the priests carrying the ark stood in the middle of
the river, the entire nation of Israel passed them as they crossed the divide
between where they had camped the night before, and what was to become their
home. They stepped into the Promised Land.
Allegorical Crossings
These two water crossings both hold great personal
significance to me, and I have thought of them often in the past as I began a
new work in a new land. I have mentioned that I have prayed the prayer of Moses,
“If your presence does not go with us, do not take us from our home.”
I have also often applied the principle to my journeys
that the Israelites were told to do in the crossing of the Jordan – they were
to allow the presence of the Lord to go before them so that he would show them
the way, “for they had not passed that way before.”
It has been like that for my family and me on several occasions. We were instructed to do something unfamiliar to us and to go and settle into a set of circumstances completely unknown to us. Some of these times more intense and challenging than others.
It has been like that for my family and me on several occasions. We were instructed to do something unfamiliar to us and to go and settle into a set of circumstances completely unknown to us. Some of these times more intense and challenging than others.
But these two examples in the Bible have significance in
other ways as well. Their allegorical applications can refer to all of us in
our walk with the Lord.
Our Walk of Faith
First of all, let me say that they both of these
instances are miraculous in nature. Many people have tried to speculate and
demonstrate how both water partings could have occurred in the natural realm,
and quite possibly they may be at least partially correct. But the fact is, we
really do not know. We are given no explanation in the Bible.
So it is with our journey of faith. Many people have
laid out formulas with just the correct words to say, or with just the right
ordinance or religious ritual to perform so that we can begin our lives with
Christ. Many of these are very good things, but the fact is, we really do not
understand what God does within us to help us begin. What God does is
miraculous in nature. It is not something that we can understand.
Born Again? Believe?
“Born again?” Nicodemus asked. “What does that mean?”
The thought seemed a bit ridiculous to him. He wanted a
coherent explanation. We cannot fault him for this. We are the same way.
Jesus tried to explain it in a different way. “If you
believe in the Son of God, you will not perish forever, but you will have
eternal life.”
Believe in the Son of God? That is not much better. Again
let me ask: “What does that mean?” Belief is such a subjective word.
"The Milwaukee Brewers (baseball team) is doing pretty well
this year. I believe in them."
"The day has started out nice. I believe it is going to be a nice day."
"The day has started out nice. I believe it is going to be a nice day."
Concerning our understanding of what is actually
happening in initiating and growing in our walk of faith, saying that we must
"believe" in Jesus is little better than saying that one must be born again. Both can mean almost anything that we want them to mean.
But speaking of belief
in terms of everyday things is not the kind of belief that Jesus is talking
about. What Jesus is talking about is when we decide to believe in him, we are
putting our trust in him so completely, that whatever may happen to us, we are
in his care.
In the end, our walk, our journey in this present life
means very little. The only value that it has is in how it relates to our
journey of faith and to the fulfillment of our lives in the Kingdom of Heaven.
That is why we can believe in Jesus. We can know that whatever occurs in the
present, Jesus gives us assurance for eternity.
Jesus has said to us as his believers, “In my Father’s
house, there are many places to live, and I am preparing a place for you.”[6]
That is why the man Job of ancient times, could say,
“Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.”[7]
Job knew that whatever the present difficulties that he was experiencing, his
place in the Father’s house was secure.
And that is why the prophet Isaiah could write these
words concerning what God is saying to you and to me:
Do not fear, for I
have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through
the waters, I will be with you;
And when you pass
through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through
the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.
For I am the Lord your
God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. (Isaiah 43:1b-3a)
[1] We left Venezuela in May
of 2002. Hugo Chavez, who began Venezuela’s present decline into political and
social turmoil, was elected in 1998. At the time of this experience of ours in Mérida,
Chavez had not yet taken over the country.
[2] Exodus 14:13-14
[3] Exodus 33:15
[4] Joshua 3
[5] This passage is in John 3
[6] John 14:2
[7] Job 13:15
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.