The Center of It All

Above the town of Jasper in the Canadian Rockies is a gondola that lifts you far above the spectacular scenery of Jasper National Park.

After getting off the ride, you can continue hiking the steep trail above the upper gondola platform through the thin mountain air. If you persevere, you will reach a summit that gives you an even more spectacular vista.

On my recent visit, I continued a few hundred feet beyond that point, crossing a small slushy ice field until I reached the highest point above the gondola. The panorama was a full 360 degrees. Perhaps the most dramatic spot I've ever visited--with stunning peaks, glaciers and river valleys all around.

In fact, I began to have the illusion that I was sitting on the axel of a giant wheel. The rest of the world was mounted on this one point and was spinning around it. I'll never forget that moment.

It reminded me of something Jesus said. "But I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all [people] to myself" (John 12 :32).

The cross was lifted up from the earth on the mount called Calvary, with the Savior of the world upon it. All of the physical world, all of the history of the world, all of humanity--is suspended in some way upon that mountain, like the axle of a wheel, because the cross is the focal point of all history.

Luke's account of the crucifixion brings this into focus. The two thieves who were crucified on Jesus' right and left represent the world, justly condemned but with a chance of redemption because of the Savior between them. One rejected him and the other placed his faith in him.

Jesus says to Nicodemus, in John 3:14-15, that He will be like the bronze snake that Moses lifted up on a pole in the wilderness, described in Num. 21: 8-9. Whoever was bitten by the real snake, would just need to look to the bronze snake to live.

The choice could not be presented more clearly: look to Jesus on the cross and live, or reject Jesus on the cross and remain doomed.

Human history and human destiny are all about Jesus. At the cross, he was lifted up and now stands at the center of it all. So for each of us comes the most important question we must answer: "Do you believe?"