A few years ago I facilitated a DGroup with two fellow Deacons at my church. I shared with them one of my favorite poems. I don’t remember which Book in the Bible we were studying at the time but I’m thinking it may have been Mark 9:39 which reads “But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.”
Anyway, the poem is by Will Allen Dromgoole and it’s titled “The Bridge Builder” and as I read the Book of Mark today, I once again thought of this poem.
An old man going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening cold and gray,
To a chasm vast and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.
“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,
“You are wasting your strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day,
You never again will pass this way;
You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide,
Why build this bridge at even tide?”
The builder lifted his old gray head;
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm that has been as naught to me
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be;
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him!”
The day Jesus ascended to heaven, he left the world a better place; he gave hope to millions who had no hope. In leaving, he was able to fill all believers with the Holy Spirit. So although his close friends were sad he was gone, he now shared his gifts with any who chose by faith to believe in his name.