back in time

There are certain dates that are emblazoned into our collective memory:

Dec. 7, 1941 - the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Nov. 22, 1963 - the assassination of JFK.
Sept. 11, 2001 - the collapse of the Twin Towers.

Everyone remembers exactly where they were when these tragedies took place. I remember my dad talking to us about Pearl Harbor, and telling us how he heard the news as his family was returning home from church on Sunday afternoon. I distinctly remember the morning of 9/11 being a bright and beautiful fall day as several of us drove to a circuit pastors meeting in rural Kansas. The radio was off, and the conversation was hearty, so we didn’t find out what happened until we arrived at the church later that morning.

It’s almost as if these moments are captured and frozen in time, indelibly inscribed upon our memory. Earth-shattering events like these have a powerful impact on us at the time that they happen, but they also have a way of haunting us as they shape and mold our world for generations to come. There’s always a part of us that wonders, “Why did it have to happen in the first place?”

What if there was a way to go back and change history? What if someone was able to come in from the outside to change things for the better?

That’s the premise of Stephen King’s 2011 novel, 11-22-63. The story is centered around a teacher named Jake Epping, who unwittingly finds a time-travel portal in the closet of a local diner. He and the diner owner get together and concoct a plan to travel back in time to stop Lee Harvey Oswald and save President John F. Kennedy’s life. There are many misadventures along the way, but eventually, Jake completes his mission and becomes a national hero (for a while at least).

Interestingly, JFK was not the only national figure who died on November 11, 1963. Though his death certainly took up most of the headlines, the acclaimed writers C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley also died that day as well. All three men were well known at the time, but for very different reasons. They were all diametrically opposed to one another in philosophy, outlook, and worldview. Kennedy was a secular humanist, Huxley was an atheist, and Lewis was a Christian apologist. And yet they all sought to answer the question: “What if someone was able to come in from the outside to change things for the better?”

In 1944, Aldous Huxley wrote a novel called, Time Must Have A Stop. It is a story about a young poet named Sebastian, who is living the high life on holiday in Florence with his rich atheist uncle. When his uncle unexpectedly dies, Sebastian resorts to thievery and ends up selling one of his uncle’s paintings to get by. Consumed by guilt over what he has done, he seeks out another relative for help, his distant cousin Bruno, a religious bookstore owner. Bruno is able to help him get back the painting that he had stolen but at a high cost to him and his life. Transformed by Bruno’s sacrifice, Sebastian embarks on his own spiritual journey by the end of the book.

In 1943, C.S.Lewis published, Perelandra, the second book in his popular Space Trilogy. Dr. Edwin Ransom travels to Perelandra (or Venus) at the behest of the ruler of Malacandra (or Mars), whom Ransom encountered in the first book of the series, Out Of The Silent Planet.

Ransom’s mission is to counter an attack on Perelandra by the ruler of Thulcandra, or Earth. This satanic attack on the paradise of Perelandra is like Satan vs. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, except on a different planet. Ransom eventually takes on a man named Weston, who has traveled there to do the Tempter’s bidding and lure the innocent king and queen of the planet into iniquity. Ransom (as the Christ figure) finally does battle with Weston and defeats him in mortal combat, leaving Perelandra pure and unstained by sin.

So what if there was a way to change history? What if someone was able to come in from the outside to change things for the better?

As it turns out, that’s exactly what happened. It is in the life, death, and resurrection of the God/Man, Jesus Christ, that the curse is reversed, every evil is undone, and everything sad finally comes untrue. It is indeed the one true myth – the one event that seems too good to be true – yet still actually is.

It all happened in real-time, in a real place, to real people. And the best part? It still happens for us today as we come to him in faith and gather around his word and his supper, and as we join together with all the saints in every time and place, from every tribe and nation who surround the throne saying, “Blessing and honor and glory and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen!”

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the way home

We were lost. We didn’t know where we were going or which way to turn. We had been driving around in circles for hours with nothing to show for it. And now we were lost, not sure how to find our way home, and losing hope by the minute.

My family and I were living in Germany at the time while my father finished up course work at a church music school in Westphalia. While we were there, my dad was determined to investigate our German heritage and to find some of the old ancestral farms. So one day we set out in our little green Ford Taunus in search of German relatives. Dad supposedly had some directions on how to get to this certain family farm, but it seemed to be of little help. So there we were, lost and in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in Northern Germany, like strangers in a strange land.

I have to tell you that not only were we physically lost at that point - I was personally feeling pretty lost inside as well. Here I was 9 years old, in a strange country, with a foreign language, a new school, and no friends. Things had changed, everything was different, I felt lost, like I was far away from home.

That's how many people in East Germany felt after World War 2 when the Border Wall was constructed in 1949, and later the Berlin Wall in 1961. They found themselves far from relatives, far from freedom, far from prosperity, and far from home. I remember the stark contrast between East and West Germany on a family trip to Berlin. It was especially noticeable driving through Checkpoint Charlie – away from modern and colorful West Berlin – into drab, dreary, and gray East Berlin. The armed soldiers placed strategically on towers throughout the city made quite the impression as well. It was a place straight out of The Great Divorce by CS Lewis – somewhere between purgatory and the edge of heaven. The sign above the gate from Dante's Inferno says it best – “Abandon hope all who enter here”.

As I think back on the experience, Jesus' words from the Gospel of Jobn 14 come to mind, words of comfort and hope for fearful followers during trouble times. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. I go there to prepare a place for you , and since I’m going to prepare a place for you, I will come back for you and take you to be with me, that where I am there you may also be. You know the way to the place I am going.” Thomas says, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” 

There are other statements in John’s gospel that are mile markers or sign posts, but this is the giant billboard on the highway of life for the disciples and for us. Jesus doesn’t just point us in the right direction or lead us on the right path. He Himself is the Way, the one and only way home to the Father. He has bridged the great chasm of fear and death that once separated us from God and from our true home in heaven. He has gone the way of the cross and the empty tomb in order to make straight the path to God and prepare for us a home in heaven.

So as we were driving around Westphalia just about to give up any hope of finding a family farm, there approached a man on a tractor in the field next to us. As my dad slowed down the car, he rolled down the window, and in his best German yelled out, “Hallo! Do you know any Dierkers around here?” (Dierker was my grandmother’s maiden name.) The farmer paused, looked a bit puzzled, and then answered, “Ich heisse Dierker”, which means, I am a Dierker!

We all looked at each other for a moment and then just started laughing at the absurdity of it all. We were related to this guy on a tractor who just happened to bump into us in the middle of nowhere. Now we were no longer lost, but going the right direction, and on the way home.

Some years later my brother was able to return to Germany as an exchange student in college. While he was there in 1989 a monumental event occurred - the Berlin Wall came down. It was an historic event for everyone because it meant the reunification of a once divided Germany. The celebration that ensued was unprecedented and my brother and his friend wanted to make sure to get in on the experience. As they were driving toward the border of East and West Germany, cars began to stop and spontaneous celebrations erupted right there on the highway. There was music, singing, dancing, fireworks, you name it. And when my brother began talking to some of the other people in the midst of all the celebrating, he realized the reason for their joy was not just that Germany was united again, but that they would now be able to see their family again. They would soon be on their way home.

Jesus has lifted the barrier of sin and death that once separated us from our true home. He takes away all of our fears and worries, and replaces that with peace, hope, and joy. He now makes His home in our hearts as we look forward to that day when He will come back for us, to bring us home to the place He has prepared for us.

Do not let your hearts be troubled, believe in God, believe also in Jesus - for He is our way home.

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