Saturday with Keely and Mark, JoAnne and
I visited Ellis Island, near the Statue of Liberty. JoAnne’s father’s family entered our country through this island. One of the descriptions of the Island was Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears. This title has now been celebrated in a ballad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGZaAwD2Mls).
The Isle of Tears designation came from the fact that between one and two percent of the immigrants who sought to pass through the island processing center where turned back and sent home. That doesn’t seem like a very big percent, but so many people were coming through that at peak times it amounted to as many as 1000 people a month who were separated from loved ones and returned home for legal or medical reasons. I can hardly imagine the heartbreak of those moments. After spending a significant portion of their life income for a passage, enduring the rigors of a long steamship voyage, and glimpsing their destination just across the harbor, they are turned away, bitterly disappointed; and perhaps also returned to whatever the difficult situation was from which they had fled.
It started me thinking about a situation I have often experienced while guiding people to God. Starting out as a Christian, becoming a new believer, is often compared to immigrating to a new country and making it your home. Just as the Statue of Liberty was a symbol of hope, freedom and a new beginning to immigrants to our country, so the spiritual crisis of humbling ourselves at the cross of Jesus, acknowledging him as our Lord and living as a subject of his kingdom, brings us spiritual freedom, hope and renewal. Years ago a country gospel quartet sung of this connection in a song called Statue of Liberty (http://www.eadshome.com/PatrioticMusic.htm).
It occurred to me as I viewed the examining rooms at Ellis Island that many people I have talked to and helped toward God over the years, fear being excluded , turned back, refused from God’s kingdom, just as that small percentage were turned back at Ellis Island. Their fear is based on different things; generalized inferiority feelings, guilt over previous sins, inability to forgive themselves, even false guilt from circumstances beyond their control, or misunderstandings about supposedly unforgiveable sins. But, whatever the reason, the dread is real. Many earnest seekers floundering in life’s sea share the fear that Mount Calvary will become for them an isle of tears instead of an isle of hope because somehow they will be refused and turned away.
I then have the privilege of sharing the good news that Scripture gives us all a different picture, a greatly reassuring one! When one asks for forgiveness, repents of evil and trusts in Christ, God promises to forgive (I John 1:9). When we are willing to humbly approach God, God’s Word is supremely comforting. “I will never turn away anyone who comes to me” Jn 6:37 (from GOD’S WORD Copyright © 1995 by God’s Word to the Nations Bible Society. All rights reserved). So the apostle James wrote, “Come near to God and he will come near to you” (James 4:8 NIV). The result of all this good news is that the sacred spaces of our lives, our times of prayer, our drawing near, become for us wells of unquenchable hope. That is God’s design. As Paul wrote, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13).