“A Tree Across A Ravine” (Ready to Worship S8E5)

October 19, 2018

Ready to Worship Season 8, Episode 5 for Friday, October 19, 2018

This season on Ready to Worship, we are studying the cross to prepare our minds for worship. In this episode, we are going to consider a story that will help us to understand the cross and reconciliation.

Transcript

This season on Ready to Worship, we are studying the cross to prepare our minds for worship. I have enjoyed the study tremendously thus far. I hope that you have also.

In the 1950s, five missionaries were killed by the AUCA INDIANS in South America. The tribe eventually welcomed the widow of one of the missionaries and the sister of another. Soon after their visit, the slow work of translating the New Testament into the Auca language began. One of the difficulties that the translators found was finding an equivalent for the word reconciled. There just didn’t seem to be one. Then, one day a translator stumbled upon a word. As the story goes, the translator was traveling through the jungle with some of the Aucas. They came to a narrow, deep ravine, that seem impassable. To make a way, the Aucas cut down a large tree so that it fell across the ravine. The perfectly placed tree allowed everyone to cross to the other side. Safely across, the translator asked the natives if they had a word for “a tree across the ravine.” Learning that they did, the translator knew that he had finally found the word that he needed to translate reconciliation. Reconciliation is the “tree across the ravine.” The ravine is sin and the perfectly placed tree that allows us to get over to God is the cross. To the saints at Rome, Paul declared, “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life” (Rom. 5:10). In like manner, to the saints at Ephesus, Paul wrote, “And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Eph. 2:16-18). Christ reconciled both Jews and Gentiles to God by the cross. Growing up in the country, this illustration has special meaning for me. Many times growing up I used footlogs to cross from one side of a creek to the other.

As we get ready to worship this Sunday, let’s think about the tree across the ravine. Without that tree, we wouldn’t be able to draw near to God in worship.