"God's Choice" - Reflection on Good Friday

Once there was a switchman who sat in a small shack on one side of the river where he operated the controls to turn the bridge and lock it into place as the train crossed. The switchman had an 8 year-old son who, everyday, after school, would come to help his father. They sat together in the shack.  The man would explain the whole mechanism of the bridge controls, and the boy enjoyed learning all about it.

 One evening as the switchman and his son were waiting for the last train of the day to come, he looked off into the distance through the dimming twilight and caught sight of train lights. He stepped to the control and waited until the train was within a prescribed distance when he was to turn the bridge. He turned the bridge into position, but, to his horror, he found the locking control did not work. If the bridge was not securely in position it would wobble back and forth at the ends when the train came onto it, causing the train to jump the track and go crashing into the river. This would be a passenger train with many people aboard.

The little boy volunteered to go over to the bridge to see what the problem was while his father stayed at the shack trying to regain control of the switch. This was a dangerous task, and the father kept insisting that the son should not go. But the brave boy went anyway.

Upon coming up to the bridge, the boy found out that one of the screws was loosed. He bent over to tighten it as his father had taught him.

The closer the train approached, the more nervous the father became, but he had to keep holding on the lock lever, or else the bridge would part and the entire train would fall into the water. He shouted for his son to come back, but the boy was still busy tightening the screw. The train was too close now; the tiny legs would never make it across the bridge in time. The man almost left his shack to run and snatch up his son and carry him to safety.

But he realized that he could not leave his position. Either the people on the train or his little son must die. He took a moment to make his decision. The train sped safely and swiftly on its way, and no one aboard was even aware of the tiny broken body thrown mercilessly into the river by the onrushing train. Nor were they aware of the pitiful figure of the sobbing man, still clinging tightly to the locking lever long after the train had passed.

They did not see him walking home more slowly than he had ever walked: to tell his wife how their son had brutally died.

That was a long story – a long sad story. But I chose it for this reflection on Good Friday anyway, because, in many ways, it is similar to what happened on the hill of Golgotha two thousand years ago.

On that day, the Son died and the Father wept.

Much had been spoken of the redemptive value of Christ’s suffering and death; little had been said of how God the Father must have felt seeing his only beloved son endure such a brutal death.

But like the man in the story, God the Father had to make a choice: either the people or his little son must die. And The Father made a choice, so did the Son - All for the sake of love.

He was despised and rejected by mankind,
   a man of sorrows, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
   he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

 Surely he took up our pain
   and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
   stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
   he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
   and by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53: 3-5)

The author of our story did have a few final words which I find to be a good point to ponder and which serve as a conclusion of this brief reflection:

Now if you comprehend the emotions which went on in this man's heart, you can begin to understand the feelings of our Father in Heaven when He sacrificed His Son to bridge the gap between us and eternal life. Can there be any wonder that He caused the earth to tremble and the skies to darken when His Son died? How does He feel when we speed along through life without giving a thought to what was done for us through Jesus Christ?