My last post involved hearing a verse that is sometimes taken as “Gospel” as heavy Law. Today I’m hearing something that tends to be taken as Law as Gospel.
It came from singing “Chief of Sinners Though I Be” to my kiddies. This is one of the songs that is being illustrated in my forthcoming book of hymns for children and, funnily enough, it was my original illustration idea that caused a bit of a double take while singing the hymn today. The end of the song is as follows:
“When my wayward heart would stray/ Keep me in the narrow way;/ Grace in time of need supply/ While I live and when I die.”
I stopped on the words “keep me in the narrow way.” It’s such a common idiom. What does it mean? It is a reference to Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:13-14. “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” From this, we’ve developed the phrase “straight and narrow” to describe a life of moral excellence, that tightrope that we must stay on to make our way through life and eventually to heaven. But hold on. That’s not what this phrase means at all! What is that “narrow way” that we ask Jesus to keep us in?
It was the illustration for the hymn that came to mind: the prodigal son on the road, his father running to meet him. The road was narrow and cross-shaped.
It is Jesus who is the Way, the narrow way, the only way to the Father (John 14:6). We are asking to be kept in Christ, in the way of repentance, the way of the cross. Repentance: contrition over sin; returning to faith in the Savior, confident of his forgiveness and acceptance.
Examples like these make me realize just how easy it is to make squeaky-clean moralism run rampant all over the Gospel. When the answer to the question is Jesus, and the point of the whole text is Him, how easy is it to replace Him with our own good Christian deeds? Wasn’t that yet another mistake of the prodigal son? “Maybe if I promise to work hard at being a really good boy from now on, my father will take me back as hired hand.” He can’t even get his rehearsed speech out before the Father embraces him, lavishly pours out his gifts of love and acceptance on him, and starts the party.
As we move into the season of Lent, this narrow way is before our eyes. It’s a darker way, the valley of the shadow of death. Many will even avoid the season in general, eager to move on to the joy (and triumphalism?) of Easter. But the way to Easter is the way of the cross, suffering and death, the Via Dolorosa. When my wayward heart should stray, may God keep me in this narrow way, and grace in time of need supply, while I live and when I die.
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