BOB SLOSSER
Where Are You GOING?! He said, 'Come'
By Bob Slosser
CBN.com Columnist
CBN.com - Jesus said all things had been handed over to him
by the father, yours and mine. Amazing, isn’t it? This is
the one who came down from heaven and we found in a manger. He
was in the world, that grubby little town called Bethlehem, and
the world (people like you and me) didn’t even know it. It
(we) ignored him. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us
. . . full of grace and truth." It gives you goose bumps, doesn’t
it?
Well, it should. That little fellow in the manger had actually
made the world, and it had become his. And he lives in us, brethren!
He dwells in you. You don’t have to go very far to talk
to him and say, "What’s going on, Lord? What’s happening
to your world? We all have the jitters?"
Well, this morning I was trying to look into my heart, where
He is, and my thoughts heard Him say, "Come."
He’s said that before; haven’t you heard Him?
"Come." If you’re laboring and all worn down until your
nerves are jumping around and screaming, He says, "Come. I’m
not laboring, worn out, and trembling. I’m not shaking
about bombs, about anthrax, or a slow government. The air’s
fine."
"Come unto me." That "unto" communicates the way it is –
"right up into my arms, right into my bosom, right into my heart."
Some of the old-fashioned language speaks meaning and tenderness
that contemporary words often miss (I can hear my kids growling).
For Christmas of 1968, my wife, a new Christian like me, was
looking all over Boston for a good Bible commentary for her
ignorant slave. She called friends in several parts of the country
and, oddly, they recommended one as the best. But it was an
old one, and I was still a new kind of guy, a writer, hip ("cool"
hadn’t arrived yet), clever, a smart aleck (but already
too "good" to use today’s much hipper and gender-neutral
smart-a--). I wasn’t sure I wanted something old and stodgy.
I was wrong. It’s the best in the world, written by three
guys named Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown. About "Come unto me"
(Matthew 11:28-30), listen to what those stodgy, old guys said:
"Incomparable, ravishing sounds these – if ever such were
heard in this weary, groaning world!"
Oh, yes. If only they were heard. So few seem to hear, and
the people are so weary...so weary.
The commentators go on:
"What goodness, what sweetness is there in the very style of
the invitation – ‘Hither to me’; and in the words
‘all ye that toil and are burdened,’ the universal
wretchedness of man is depicted, on both its sides – the
active and passive forms of it. ‘Take my yoke upon you’
– the yoke of submission to Jesus – ‘and learn
of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest
unto your souls.’ As Christ’s willingness to empty
Himself to the uttermost of His Father’s requirements was
the spring of ineffable repose to His own Spirit, so in the
same track does He invite all to follow Him with the assurance
of the same experience."
What do we get out of this finally? "That rest which the soul
experiences when once safe under Christ’s wing makes all
yokes easy, all burdens light."
It all works out when you respond simply to the simple "Come."
I will say
of the Lord, "He is my refuge and
my fortress,
my God, in
whom I trust.
Surely he
will save you from the fowler’s snare
and from
the deadly pestilence . . .
You will
not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow
that flies
by day,
nor the pestilence
that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague
that destroys at midday . . .
For he will
command his angels concerning
you
to guard
you in all your ways;
they will
lift you up in their hands,
so that you
will not strike your foot against
against a
stone . . .
"Because
he loves me," says the Lord, "I
will rescue
him;
I will protect
him, for he acknowledges
my name.
He will call
upon me, and I will answer
him;
I will be
with him in trouble . . .
(Psalm
91, NIV)
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