It’s a common custom, among some, to take up a little extra reading in Lent—something different, something spiritual, something to open the mind and the heart. I do this; I try at least to read something good for the soul, something different, something I’ve not read before or not for a long time. It’s good for me; it’s better than television; it helps me think and pray and focus.
This Lent I’m reading The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan—rereading it, for it’s been a long time. It’s a classic of literature, a spiritual classic too. It’s the story a man named Christian, a pilgrim making the arduous journey to the “Celestial City,” to heaven; it is an allegory of the Christian life, romantic and fanciful. It’s a Puritan text, not Catholic at all. The pope does make an appearance in the book, but it’s not flattering; he appears as an old man sitting at the mouth of a cave grimacing at pilgrims who ignore him as they pass by. For that reason, it may not be as well known among Catholics. But still, it’s a good book, one that has always taught me and strangely comforted me.
It belongs to that great genre found in so many of the profound stories of human culture. A story of a quest, a pilgrimage, a journey: it belongs to all those stories from Abraham to the Hebrews wandering in the desert to Dante to the Wizard of Oz. There’s just something we understand in stories like these, something that touches us, something true these stories tell us—and that is we are each of us individually and together on a journey going somewhere; and sometimes that journey is difficult and even dangerous, sometimes the paths are full of light and ease; sometimes they’re dark and winding and frightening.
The Pilgrim’s Progress was a favorite—I’ve said before—among the British soldiers in World War I. There was a trench, for instance, named “Pilgrim’s Progress,” and many of the soldiers saw themselves in the main character, Christian. As Christian carried a great burden on his back, so did the soldiers with all their gear. In the story of this Puritan pilgrim, men in the trenches saw their story.[1] It’s why we like these stories so much, why they remain in the culture and in our consciousness, because they tell us something profound, something we know, each of us, about the journey that is this thing called life.
One scene particularly has struck me thus far in my reading it again, and that’s when Christian and his companion Hopeful lose their way. They took what they thought looked like an easier path, a short-cut, but found themselves quickly in the dark; come to a place called “Doubting-Castle,” they became prisoners of a rather monstrous figure called “Giant Despair.” Day and night, they remained trapped by Giant Despair in his Doubting Castle. They began to think they wouldn’t get out of there alive, that Despair would kill them. Giant Despair threatened them every day, and even suggested to them that they end themselves, that that would be a more merciful thing to do. These pilgrims, having got lost a little bit, found themselves in great danger, and they were afraid, morbidly afraid. It is a dark moment in the story, this allegory of the Christian life. Perhaps you understand it.
But then the beautiful moment: It was, as the story goes, as the sun was rising, still locked in the dungeons of Doubting-Castle, that Christian finally spiritually woke up, “as one half-amazed,” it says, like he just remembered something important that had always been true. “What a fool,” he said to himself, “I have a key in my bosom, called promise, that will…open any lock in Doubting-Castle.” And so, Christian pulled from his heart the key called promise and unlocked the door, and then the next door and then the next. By the time Giant Despair found out what had happened, there was nothing he could do, because Christian and Hopeful had found the King’s Highway again, beyond Despair’s reach. And then they were able to sing again, pilgrims making progress to the heavenly city.[2]
A simple little story, simple like a children’s fairy tale: still, it speaks to me, saying something quite grown-up, something some of us—perhaps many of us—might need to hear. And that is, for we Christians, there is a key in our heart called promise. It’s there; we need to remember it’s there. The promise is, of course, of God’s redemption, the work of his love for us. We are in Christ; the Holy Spirit has been poured into us and so we are sons and daughters of the Father; we can pray to the Father.[3] Grafted into the promise to Abraham alongside our Jewish sisters and brothers, we too belong to that ancient hope to belong eternally to the one God, to be in his family with him forever, to be surprised, to laugh, to hear when it’s all said and done from God himself, “Behold, I make all things new.”[4] That is, the promise is of our destiny which we possess by faith; which we should remember—especially in moments of darkness and despair and even sin, no matter how grotesque—that we have within our hearts a key called promise, and that we just have to find it to use it to unlock all those doors closing us in. This, of course, is an allegory, a symbol. But perhaps it speaks to your life right now.
The gospel today is of the transfiguration of Jesus. On his way to Jerusalem, a pilgrim but also a savior, Jesus is changed mystically and miraculously, his face and his clothes shining like the sun.[5] Just for a moment he was revealed thus; only a few disciples saw it, this eternal yet fleeting glory, before they resumed their journey to Jerusalem and to the Cross, a pilgrimage undertaken for us. The transfiguration was like the key of promise for the disciples: it revealed their destiny, showing them what’s eternally real, what’s transcendently true. And it’s a miracle we’re meant to remember, in which we’re meant to find hope as we walk with Christ too—to our own Jerusalem and to our own death and resurrection. Which is the point, that in Christ we should have hope, that we can have hope—no matter the darkness, no matter how giant or frightening our despair.
No matter your despair. Because you belong to the God who created you, who redeemed you in Christ, and who will not let you go. Because he loves you; he really does. And it’s love that will not fail you. If you’ll just look in your heart and find the promise that’s always been there, and then unlock the door. Amen.
[1] Paul Fussell, The Great War in Modern Memory, 138
[2] John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress (London: Penguin, 1987), 168-169
[3] Romans 5:5; 8:14-15
[4] Revelation 21:5
[5] Matthew 17:2
© 2020 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield
