Rooftop at Night

During the first night at the castle, one of the Youth Interns took me up to the highest point of the castle: the attic library. We climbed up the "Blistery Tower," stumbled across the roof in the rain, and mounted another flight of wooden stairs. I heard his voice but could not see him, for the room was darker than night. I heard him walk on before me with his hands stretched out in front of him like a zombie, mumbling, "If I remember correctly, the light switch is...here." 

As if at the snap of a finger, light flooded the room, evaded the darkness, and brought sight. There, in front of us, sat five enormous wooden chests of age-old letters batched together with crispy ropes, tattered Bibles and dusty New Testament books, and stained newspapers with headlines about the economy during the Great Depression. He couldn't contain himself, opening up one chest after another, grabbing one book after another from the faithful old shelf, and calling me over to see a Bible from the 1400s or a geology textbook from the 1600s or a wrinkled black-and-white photo from the war. I had no words to say; I tried to capture the room with my camera. But neither words nor pictures could justify the verity of history.

We came down from the attic and stopped to crawl on top of the roof. There, we stood in wonder, staring at the dimly-lit towns situated on top of precarious cliffs in the distance. Nothing disturbed the silence except the light breeze in our hair, the gentle rain pitter-pattering on our jackets, and my occasional snifffle. If I had found a sleeping bag, I would have slept on the roof in the rain that night. I just did not want to come down.

***

Some say that the hardest part of a hike is the ascension but at the top you'll find that the view was worth all the pain, sweat and blood. 


No, I disagree. 


The hardest part, in fact, is leaving the solitude, peace, and beauty of the peak and returning to endless deadlines, superficial coffee dates and unproductive meetings, to our broken friendships of jealousy, selfish ambition and betrayals, to the attractive model who vomits herself skinny and cries herself to sleep, to the wealthy businessman who drinks himself to sleep, to the drug-dealers who wake up screaming from a nightmare, to beggars whose helpless eyes we avoid. The hardest part is having to leave somewhere seemingly perfect for a descent towards what often feels like Hell. 

And yet, wasn't that what Jesus did for us? Jesus, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who has no need for the selfish love, meager help, and superficial praise of human beings, chose to give up His heavenly crown for a crown of thorns, give up His throne of glory to die naked on the cross, give up His power to save himself for man's powerlessness in the face of death. 

Why, Jesus, why? Why did you die for people like me, who profess to always remember you and yet forget you, who promise to obey you and yet disobey you, who are willing to listen to your voice and yet ignore you, who tells others to trust in you and yet doubt you ourselves, who condemn Peter for denying you three times and yet deny you daily? Why do you love people like me, who hide your glory, who steal your fame, who take the credit for what you've done, simply for our own fifteen minutes?  

And yet I hear you say, "so that by my crown of thorns, you worship a God not of gold or silver but of humility and sacrificial love. So that by my shameful death on the cross, you are no longer held hostage by guilt, shame and self-condemnation. So that by giving up the power to save my own life, I save you and give you eternal life."

If you find another King like Jesus, another God like my God, I will give you my soul. For now, my entirety belongs to Him.