The Invisible Bridge

As you know, on Wednesday August 1st the 35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis Minnesota collapsed. As of this date, there are still people missing. The subsequent news reports on the many bridges across America in trouble, has caused many of us to consider or be suspicious of the bridges we cross to and from work or school. A new anxiety is creeping into everyday life.

We all know about the other bridges in our lives - the ones we cross everyday. The bridge of relationship to family, friends and coworkers. Relationships like bridges need to be looked at and inspected constantly and when we don't, when we travel heavily across them without regard to sustainability - they too collapse eventually under the weight of it all.

The fact is, even with the best care and inspection of our relationship bridges they collapse anyway. Because they're supported by fragile material - people.

So. If we can't truly trust the steel and concrete bridges and we can't truly trust the relational bridges - where's the hope? Where's the security? What's the barrier that keeps anxiety from creeping into our heart and paralyzing our lives?

Good question.

What about the Invisible Bridge? Art Erickson, also of Minneapolis, calls the Invisible Bridge the; "Ultimate bridge not made by human hands." That's it isn't it? We can only trust the bridge that is Christ Jesus. He is the only one who can bear the weight of our 'travels'.

When Jesus is the only bridge we travel, He ends up being the only bridge we trust. But when we build a relationship bridge to anyone or anything else and we've not built it on Christ - it won't matter how careful we are or how often we inspect it. A bridge made by you or me is under a constant state of deterioration.

Conversely, a bridge that is Christ isn't subject to such environmental erosion and will not collapse. That's the message of the Gospel and it's the message to the hundreds of men, women and families who are served each day at Cherry Street Mission Ministries.

Dan Rogers