Room at the Rock

Closed the hymnal.  Glasses unnecessary.  Familiar. “Rock of Ages, cleft for me.  Let me hide myself  in Thee.”  (Especially love James Ward’s arrangement on YouTube.)

Some days I need to hide, not from but to.

It’s the myself that sends me scurrying to the Rock.  Need driven running to the One who saves a place for me, knowing I’ll be back.

Luke 5 tells the story of some fishermen, on shore, tending nets.  Jesus climbs into Simon’s boat, asks to shove off, to use his boat like a pulpit, from which to teach the crowd.

Simon thinks the lessons’s over, when Jesus says, “Push out into the deep water and let your nets down for a catch.”

Jesus already knows, but Simon says,”We’ve been fishing all night.  Didn’t even catch minnows.  But if you say so, I’ll let out the nets.”

They did.

And hauled in a boat-swamping load.

This story’s familiar.  Sermons stress, “Launch out into the deep” and Simon’s “If you say so.”  Faith stretchers.

But this reading left me awestruck, like Peter, at this God who, to this very day, does the unthinkable for the unlikely.  No wonder Peter flopped to his knees, like a fish out of water, and cried, “I’m a sinner and can’t handle this holiness.  Leave me to myself.”

But Jesus didn’t leave Simon, nor does he “leave me to myself,” or you.

Probably why, last Sunday, seemed like almost everybody, put down their hymnals  to sing by heart, “Let me hide myself  in Thee.”

Faith, not in familiar words, but in the One who keeps a place in the cleft of the Rock,  where we safely hide,  until we dare to faith another day.

“Rock of ages

Cleft for me 

Let me hide

Myself

In Thee.”

There’s always room at The Rock.

 

 

 

 

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