The Stranger in the Chariot Who Wanted In

Far from home, a man was riding home.

He had come such a long way. All the way to Jerusalem, where God's people went to worship. He was an important man. He looked after the queen's treasure in a country far to the south, in Africa. He had gold, and fine clothes, and a chariot of his very own.

The one thing he did not have was a place.

He was different, and in those days there were rules about who could go all the way inside the temple, all the way close to God. Those rules left this man standing outside. He could come near, but not all the way in.

Imagine coming so far, so very far, and finding a fence you were not allowed to cross. Imagine the ache of it, and the wondering way down deep: Is there a place in God's family for someone like me?

He was reading as he rode, a scroll open across his knees. Old words from the prophet Isaiah, about a man who was hurt and would not fight back. Like a lamb led away to be killed, the words said. Like a sheep that does not make a sound.

The man read it again. Who is this about? he wondered. Who would let himself be hurt like that, and never say a word?

He did not know, but oh, how he wanted to.

Now God had seen this man on the long road. God always sees the one who is aching to come in. So God sent a friend named Philip running, running across the desert, right up to the rolling chariot.

"Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip called.

"How can I," said the man, "unless someone shows me?"

Then the man did a brave thing. He stopped the chariot, and he slid over and made room, and he asked this stranger to climb up and tell him everything.

So Philip climbed in. Starting right there, with the silent, gentle Lamb on the page, he told him the whole story. The Lamb had a name, Philip said. The Lamb was Jesus. Jesus had let himself be led away and hurt, not because anyone made him, but because he loved. He was making a way for every outsider to come all the way in.

The man listened, and something inside him broke open like morning.

They came around a bend, and there was water, shining beside the road.

"Look! Water!" the man said. "What is stopping me? What keeps me out?"

And the beautiful answer was nothing at all, not anymore.

So down into the water they went together, and the man who had stood outside the fence his whole life was washed, and welcomed, and brought all the way in.

Then Philip was gone, and the man rode on by himself, and he was not lonely for a single mile of it.

He went home rejoicing, with the reins in his hands and the scroll on his knees and the water still drying in his hair.

A family was being gathered from every far country, and the door into it was Jesus, standing wide open with no fence around it. Somewhere down that road there was a table, and a chair, and this man's own name written on it, kept for him all along.