Witnessing an event!
About 5 years ago, I found myself in the middle of a barren, North Utah prairie. Desolate would be a great description of the place with sagebrush and rice-grass dominating the landscape, an occasional lone Cyprus tree dotting the landscape, thirsting for a spectator to enjoy it’s existence. The north end of the Great Salt Lake has the nearby Spiral Jetty as an internationally known land art destination along with Promontory/ Golden Spike, but that’s about it. No fanfare, no spectacular anything. Just dirt, wind, and a few rodent species etching out a survival while dodging some hunting birds to accompany them.
In May of 1869, the effort of a combined 20,000 Irish laborers from the east and Chinese from the west collided in effort to this vastly barren location to bring an East/West separated nation together. Along with the telegraph, the days of slow-moving, pioneering wagon trains (which hauled 2.5 millions of pounds of baggage and thousands of travelers) and the short-lived failed effort of the Pony Express were now obsolete. The onset of a modern transportation system quickened the growth of a burgeoning people. With the Civil War in its review mirror,and the flavor of Gold dust blowing in the nostrils of adventurous fortune seekers, a nations identity was being formed.
But it is at that moment of striking the famous Golden Spike where all of this was made possible, an elegantly frock-coated Leland Stanford of the Central Pacific Railroad and Thomas C. Durant of the Union Pacific Railroad both made the May Spike-Appointment with a nations destiny two days late. Stanford overcame a train wreck two days prior, and Durant was kidnapped by tie-cutters who hadn’t been paid in two months. So the semi-delayed ceremony came to the big moment and with Stanford taking a firm hold of the ceremonial sledge hammer, lifting it up, and then,…. well, he missed it. Under a certain cloud of dusty and hidden chuckles from both Irish and Chinese sledgehammer experts, the second effort was made. With that strike of the gold covered iron spike, came a message, as that last iron rail was connected to over 2,000 miles of rail, as telegraph wire tied to the rail announced the ‘strike’ across the country and eventually around the world.
All of America’s problems in the past! Right? Not so. Nightmares ensued for the native people groups. White and Red clashed into uprisings, campaigns, stands, and massacres. Clashes with names that included; Santee Sioux, Red Cloud, Custer’s Last Stand, Nez Pearce, Geronimo, and Wounded Knee, and many many more…. defined the social conflict in our nation’s development. Immigrants, explorers, and adventurists from the east and the west flooded into vast expanse of the empty and unclaimed spaces. As a blank coloring sheet is designed to be filled inside the lines, America’s lines were yet to be drawn, but the golden spike defined most of the efforts. Wealth and fortunes were designed and began to be made from that ‘spiking’ moment.
I wonder how many of us are still looking for a golden spike moment? A point in time that has words like opportunity, hope, future, fortune, and progress wrapped around each tie of our life that is being laid. These words come across on the ‘plates of our lives’ in important times and seem to tie in the rest of our life. During our most difficult moments, perhaps barren of resource and life seems purposeless,.. it is at these times when things are most destined for change.
I heard it said that the only thing worse than being in the wilderness of your life is not knowing you are in a wilderness setting. Jesus experienced the wilderness. It was there that He took the place of desperateness,.. you know about these things. Being hungry. Being alone. Being powerless. Being tempted. Jesus does not succumb to the temptations, rather He converts this into a teaching moment for all people, for all times. The very least we can pluck from His resilience the hope that we too can overcome.
It’s interesting in this writing’s context that another spike would impact our lives much more than a golden one from a barren Utah prairie. That spike that attached Him to the Cross, brought us freedom from everything. His spike was not celebrated on a desolate skull-shaped rock with fanfare or a celebration banner. His spike didn’t send a message carried over a telegraph wire announcing it’s moment of completion. Rather the spike that was struck in His flesh pronounced to all mankind a statement. “It is finished”. The ultimate act of completion of an event predicted some 8-10,000 years prior in a lush Edenic garden was brought to fruition on that Golgotha mount. With a resounding collision of flesh and spirit witnessed by both Heaven and Hell, Jesus’ spike ‘nailed it’ for all mankind. John 3:16 manifested to every ‘whosoever’ ever. This event wasn’t delayed by a kidnapping or a train crash. Rather it is the most perfectly timed event ever. And it’s ring is still as loud now as it was then. It wasn’t an event. It was The Event!
Hopefully, you have witnessed this Event in your own life. If not, allow the spike of God’s love to become your own reality today.
pkriskent 