Marcus Redding Hears A Poem

It was Thursday, the day that Marcus made deliveries. He liked working in the warehouse the rest of the week but he liked having one day where he could get out and drive around. He drove route 5 today, the route that goes west on 31: Chandler, Brownsboro, Murchison, Athens. He delivered candy bars and beef jerky and Grandma’s cookies. He had 17 stops to make. Thirteen gas stations. Four businesses. He liked getting outside, even though it was cold. He liked seeing the same people every week, finding out how they were doing. But most of all he liked having time to listen to his iPod as he drove.

He liked listening to the Bible and the spiritual songs, but he really enjoyed listening to the sermon podcasts that Eddie had loaded on his iPod when he first gave it to him a couple years ago. Every week he heard seven or eight sermons besides the two he heard on Sunday. He listened to a preacher from Sensenbrenner, Georgia, one from Lubbock, Texas, and another from Bakersfield, California. Good preaching from scripture. Applicable. Interesting. Persuasive. He learned a lot. And it motivated him to serve God more wholeheartedly during the day, show more love to Lauren, and set a Christlike example to his co-workers.

On the way out of Athens he listened to a sermon on the challenges of aging. He never heard a sermon like that before. But the preacher pointed out there is a lot in God’s word about getting older, old age is a blessing, and older people play a vital role in the work of the church. He paused the sermon while he made a stop at the Kidd Jones in Brownsboro. But after that delivery he climbed back up into the truck and pulled onto 31 heading back to Tyler. He put the headphones back in and listened to the end of the sermon. The preacher was telling about another, older preacher who often told portions of a certain poem to illustrate the value of older people in the church. So this preacher decided to close his sermon by telling the whole poem. This is how it went…

An old man going a lone highway…came at even cold and gray
To a chasm vast and wide and steep…with waters rolling cold and deep
The old man crossed in the twilight dim…for that sullen stream held no fear for him
But he turned when safe on the other side…and built a bridge to span that tide
“Old man” said a fellow pilgrim near…“You’re wasting your strength building here”
“Your journey will end with the ending day…and you never again will pass this way
“You’ve crossed the chasm deep and wide...why build a bridge at eventide?”
The builder lifted his old gray head…“Good friend, in the path I’ve come,” he said
“There follows after me a youth whose feet must pass this way
“This chasm that has been naught to me…to that fair-haired youth a pitfall may be
“He too must cross in the twilight dim…good friend, I’m building this bridge for him.”

It made Marcus think of 1 Peter 5:5, “Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’”

He liked the poem so much that as soon as he got back to the office he listened to it again and copied it down, all the time thinking of his Grandpa Sam and the older folks at church.

More about Marcus Redding’s journey of faith next week.