Lent 4

Sailing ships on the Mediterranean Sea in the Middle Ages had no radios. No binoculars. And no GPS devices.       So, what was a navigator to do? Use a portolan chart.

Hand-drawn and often quite colorful, these charts were written on vellum, an animal skin that had been prepared by cleaning, bleaching and stretching. The charts contained information that was lifesaving for sailors, who used them to find their way to the safety of a port. Although they contained very little information about inland geography, the charts provided crucial data about coastlines and harbors.

Sailors called them “portolans,” from the Italian word portolano, meaning “harbor official” or “navigation manual.”

Portolans were used for more than 500 years, showing seafarers where to dock and how to avoid danger. According to the Yale Alumni Magazine, they were “renowned for their accuracy — which is remarkable, as early cartographers couldn’t see the coast from a distance.” Portolans show major ports in red letters and minor ports in black. Shoals and other sailing hazards are identified with black dots.

Speaking of maps, there was a couple out on a road trip. The wife was driving, and the husband was trying to read a large map and give her directions. He became very frustrated with the fine print on the map, so he crumpled it up and threw it in the back seat. She turned to him and said, “You’re not going to get anywhere with that latitude.”

The third chapter of the Gospel of John contains what is probably the most famous verse in Scripture: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (v. 16). Jesus is God’s only Son, the eternal Word of God in human form. He invites us to believe in him, so that we will not perish. And he shows us the way to live, so that we can enjoy the safety and security of eternal life with God.

Jesus is God’s portolan.

God put his Word in human skin, long before navigational charts were put on animal skin. “In the beginning was the Word,” says John in the first chapter of his gospel. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (vv. 1, 14). Yes, it was in Jesus that the Word of God became flesh, visible in human skin. It was the appearance of God in Jesus that allowed us to experience the grace and truth of God in a way that we never could before.

Ancient scrolls did not do the trick. We needed to see God’s Word in flesh and blood.

A few chapters later, Jesus is talking with a Pharisee named Nicodemus. During their conversation, Jesus tells him that God had a history of providing portolan charts to save his people. “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” says Jesus, “so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (3:14-15).

Back in the book of Numbers, the people of Israel faced trouble in the wilderness. They were not in danger of crashing into rocks along a coastline but facing death from the bites of poisonous serpents. God offered Moses a portolan by saying, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So, Moses made a serpent out of bronze and put it upon a pole (21:8-9).

Can you guess the result? Whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

Like the serpent on the pole, Jesus is God’s portolan. He is as visible as the serpent of Moses, the one we look up to when we are in danger of perishing, when we are as scared as medieval sailors on a dark and stormy sea. The promise is as true today as it ever has been: “everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Belief is so important in John 3:16. Navigators in the Middle Ages had to believe in their portolans to avoid dying at sea. We are invited to believe in Jesus to avoid perishing in the journey of life.

The two meanings of the Italian word portolano are significant: “Harbor official” and “navigation manual.” Jesus plays both roles as he guides us toward eternal life. He is not only the Word of God in human skin, but he is the one who leads us away from danger and toward safe harbor with God.

Jesus is our harbor official. He is the one sent by God to welcome us home, to lead us safely into port. “Indeed,” says the Gospel of John, “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned” (3:17-18).

Think about how important it is to trust the harbor official. If we follow his guidance, we are going to dock safely. If we distrust him and argue with him, we are going to end up on the rocks. The story is told of two radio operators, one of them aboard a U.S. Navy ship. They had the following exchange:

Radio 1, on the Navy ship: “Please divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision.”
Radio 2: “Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees.”

Radio 1: “This is a U.S. Navy ship. I repeat, divert your course.”

Radio 2: “Negative, divert your course.”

Radio 1: “This is an aircraft carrier of the United States Navy. Divert your course immediately!”
Radio 2: “This is a lighthouse. Your call.”

Jesus is not only our harbor official; he is our lighthouse. All the guidance he gives is designed to keep us from crashing. By believing in him, we will not perish but will have eternal life. To paraphrase the woman in the car trip story, we’re not going to get anywhere without the right latitude.

Jesus is also our navigation manual. He is the one who shows us how to walk in the light of God’s truth and God’s grace. “And this is the judgment,” says the Gospel of John, “that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. … But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God” (3:19, 21).

We are a people who love to hide, as Adam and Eve did the first time God sought them after they had eaten of the forbidden tree. We are afraid of being seen. Afraid of being authentic. Afraid of being vulnerable. Afraid of Truth and exposing the untruths within ourselves, even if it means we can be healed. We are a people who love the status quo, a people who prefer to guide our own ship and keep our hands on the tiller.

To follow Jesus is to do the exact opposite of what our humanness might cause us to want to do – to hide ourselves, to keep things the way they are, to seek security in stasis, to avoid risk, to navigate our own ship.

One of the most brilliant minds in economics, Joseph Schumpeter, realized that all great innovations emerge from the destruction of old systems. He called his principle, “creative destruction.” To create anew for the future, you must first eliminate that which holds you in stasis to the present.

The Gospel gives us this same message. When we truly put our faith in Jesus and allow him to be our navigator, we allow him to remake us. We ask him to help us sacrifice our current “self” in hope that he will reconstruct us into a new Being, a saved, whole, healthy, restored Human Being, a Human Being made in God’s image.

Lent is a time when we think of ourselves in darkness but commit ourselves to moving into the Light. It’s a time of ultimate repentance. It’s a time of supreme commitment, trust, faith, and hope in an unseen future, an eternal tomorrow.

Historians have found that the Red Sea was often depicted on portolans in the Middle Ages. This was not because Mediterranean sailors needed to find their way through the Red Sea. Instead, it was a reminder to them. It told them that God was with them, working for good in their lives, just as God had been with the Israelites as they crossed the Red Sea to escape oppression in Egypt.

Jesus is God’s portolan, the Word of God in human skin. He is our harbor official, navigation manual and lighthouse. When you find yourself unable to see what lies ahead, put your faith in him. And he will guide you safely to eternal life.