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TRAVEL STORY:
The greatest guide for the greatest journey
Posted Feb. 22, 2008 in Minneapolis, USA
The Greatest Guide
For the Greatest Journey
By Eric Magnusson (Minneapolis, USA)
Did I tell you what happened to me last year? Did I tell you about the trip I’ll never forget?
Last autumn I went to Lebanon on business. My affairs there took less time than I had expected, so I had some free time before my scheduled return to Italy. I decided to make a private trip to Jerusalem to see an old friend. He visited me at my home in Rome three years ago and I hadn’t seen him since then.
Well, I left Lebanon and I was on my way south to Jerusalem when I had to stop for the night in a small place in a fertile plain near Karn Hattin. I was glad to find a small hostel, but it was quite full and I had to pay a high price even for a simple mattress in a dark, cramped room in the attic.
I was awakened next morning by a strange sound. It was like a sound of hundreds of shoes beating against stone pavement. I stretched my neck through a small window in my room and saw a big crowd of people walking in the same direction on the narrow street below. I dressed quickly, thinking it was maybe a public emergency of some sort. I grabbed my bag and ran down and out into the street.
It was like stepping into a human river. The narrow, stone-paved street between low houses was full of people: young people, old people, children, whole families. Some had food and drink and blankets with them and seemed well prepared, others had nothing except light clothes on their bodies. I had been worried that people were fleeing from some danger, but now I saw that everyone was in a good mood. People were smiling, talking in the local language which I didn’t understand. It was a pleasant morning, the sky was cloudy, but the air felt just right, not too hot.
I had no idea where all this big crowd was going and what was going to happen. But I thought I’d better go along, because something worthwhile was clearly going on if so many people were on the move.
I joined a small family, a young man who said his name was David, his pregnant wife, his cute little daughter, who seemed to be about four years old, and his grandmother. We couldn’t communicate well because I didn’t speak their language, but they were very nice to me and I stayed close to them in the moving crowd.
We walked in this cheery crowd for over an hour. We must have been a few thousand, I guess. We walked out of the little town through the fields and plantations, and then through the orchards with fruit still on the trees. Then we went straight for the barren, stony hills, toward a hill with two peaks. We passed through green meadows where sheep were grazing. If it weren’t for this big crowd of people, the landscape would have looked so idyllic, almost like the hills near Rome where our family went to picnic sometimes.
After more than an hour’s walking, we arrived to the edge of the plain, to the foot of a stony hillside. Thousands of people were there already, most of them sitting in the grass. Some were standing and talking with big gestures, some lying down and resting, little kids running around, mothers nursing their babies, some people spreading blankets and eating bread. It was like a big picnic. The air was pleasantly warm, but the sky was still covered with light clouds. More people were coming all the time, so they started to move up the hillside and sat down on stones or blankets.
I spotted a man dressed in a western way like myself, clearly a foreigner, and I asked him to join me and David. I was glad to meet another Italian, somebody who spoke my language. I told him I was from Rome and he said he was from Ostia, the seaside resort outside Rome where I have a cousin. He said he was a salesman on a business trip and he, too, was caught by surprise in this moving crowd. I was glad he knew the local language and was able to translate what David and other local people said.
When the sky started to clear and sunshine lit the hillside, a handsome young man stood up among the people sitting on the hillside. The people stopped talking and all eyes were on him. I must admit I didn’t have the slightest idea what was going on. I expected he was going to tell us what to do or where to go next.
He said a few words I didn’t understand. He had a strong but calm voice. When he finished, people said a long “oohhhhhhh!”
“What did he say?” I asked. My Roman friend translated: “He said, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’”
Suddenly, my heart started pounding. I looked up at this man on the hillside, his robe glowing in the sunshine. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” I repeated in my mind. He seemed to be speaking directly to me, I felt poor in my spirit. The last few months, my spirit had been failing me, my former self-confidence was crumbling, I felt wrong inside. I felt like I was mourning.
The man on the hillside said something again, just a few words in a slow, calm vice. Again, the crowd was moved with emotion, all eyes fixed on him, their faces so soft, so tender.
My Roman friend translated: “He said, ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.’”
The words touched me deep in my heart. The man on the hill knew my heavy heart. His words were a big comfort. The hard shell around my volnerable inner self was craking up and falling off. I was willing to let go, to be vulnerable and true, to trust him with my heart.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth,” he said next, and I started to tremble. Tears started rising in the inner edges of my eyes and my chest started shaking. I was on the verge of sobbing. I looked at him, thousands of eyes fixed on his sunlit face. He was standing alone among the people seated all around him. As I looked at his soft face, I longed so much that he would help me to put my life right, to get rid of everything wrong in me. And as I gazed into his face, I felt an invisible light penetrating me through and through. I felt completely transparent. I started to sob, I couldn’t speak. I sobbed like a child, and I heard people around me crying, too.
He said another sentence, and his strong yet tender voice melted my heart: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
Now my tears were falling down my cheeks as he said next, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” I knew it beyond doubt that he was speaking of God - of God Almighty showing his mercy to me, to us.
And then this extraordinary man said something that I will never forget, something that I carry in my heart as my greatest treasure, something nobody can ever take away from me. He said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” And I believed him. I believed that he would help me to become new and pure, that I would be allowed to see God some day. I was completely sure that he was telling the truth.
My Roman friend was deeply touched by his words, too. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Fa bene di sentirlo” in Italian. “It feels good to hear him.” He added, “E un uomo buono. Buono come il pane.” “He is a good man. Good as bread.”
Yes, the man on the hillside was good to my soul, good as bread from God. I wanted his good words to fill me, I wanted to eat them as good bread. He spoke as someone sent from God – and I believed him. I believed his every word. I believed he was sent by God.
“Who is he?” I asked David through my Roman translator. “He is rabbi Jesus, a preacher from this area,” said David. “He’s very popular. He loves people and speaks truth as a godly man. People come from all over to listen to him.”
We all sat and listened to Jesus for a long time. When his sermon was over, everyone remembered a few sentences in our hearts, and all of us together probably remembered every precious word of the sermon on that hillside.
In the end of his sermon, he said something with a surprising authority: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Master, Master,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
Those were amazing words, but I knew in my heart that he spoke the truth. He was sent by his Father, by Almighty God in heaven. I wanted to follow him.
I tell you, friends, I won’t ever forget that sermon on the mountain.
Yes, after that event that changed my life I did go on to Jerusalem and I visited my friend there. Then I went back to Lebanon and took a boat home to Rome. When I came home, my wife, family, and friends said I was a changed man. They were surprised they saw me at peace. “I haven’t seen you so calm and serene since that day when we decided to marry,” my wife said.
Yes, my life has changed, my interests have changed, my purpose in life has changed. I had always been so interested in Roman politics and in Cesar and in victories of our legions against the barbarians, but after I had returned from the East I’ve been thinking about God and heaven and loving other people. I’m thinking often about what Jesus said on that hillside.
Yes, it was Jesus himself I heard speaking on the hillside. He is the prophet who is now drawing such crowds everywhere he goes. Many people say he is the Messiah, the Christ. He said himself that he was the son of God the Father. I know it must be true. I know it with my new heart.
My friends, when my eyes saw the face of Jesus on that hillside, my spirit saw the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus, the Messiah from God. I believe he spoke the truth, every sentence he said was true, every word he said was true. I believe that one day I will see him in heaven. I believe it will be the greatest journey of my life. I believe I will see him there as God and as King of All Glory that he really is. I will see him and I will be with him. I believe he is my Savior, the only one who can save me from myself. I pray to God for one thing: that I may live in the house of God with Lord Jesus Christ, to gaze upon his beautiful face, to worship Him, to enjoy His presence all the time. This is what I believe, this is what my heart longs for, this is the promised journey I am waiting for.
“One thing I ask of the Lord,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord …
I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.”
(The Bible, Psalm 27:4, 13 NIV)
________________________
TO GOD BE ALL THE GLORY!
Published in the U.S.A. Copyright © 2007-2008 by Eric Magnusson.
Published by permission. All rights reserved.
