Imago Gospels - 37 - Canyon

Mark 14

So so so so much in this chapter. I debated as I read the passage and thought about it through the day about whether to focus on one small piece of this large narrative or just to try to capture it all. I was planning initially on just one piece of it but then we visited Blyde River Canyon this afternoon. Apparently it is considered the 3rd largest canyon in the world. It was truly stunning. While the views were clouded by smoke and haze from controlled burns in the area, it was still an amazing sight. It was one of those places that try as one might, it is impossible to capture in a photograph (or a hundred). The size and the depth is just too great.

I think about that with God and this story. There is much as I read this part of the Gospel narrative that I don’t feel I get the answer to Why. Why did Jesus have to die? Why did he have to suffer all he suffered? I know the theological answers to those questions, but I still ask the question at times of why things had to be done that way. But whenever I ask that question, I come back to the truth that God’s ways are not our ways and God’s thoughts are not ours. If we could truly understand and grasp all of what God was doing and what God was about, then I don’t think God can be God.

As I look as the vastness of the place I visited today, I realize how small I am in the grand scheme. Yet, for some crazy reason, God chose to love me and love all even as we are just a few people out of billions alive today and billions more who have lived throughout history.