Dave Hop This epic retelling of the American West starts with a man, a boy and some measuring sticks. Horizon is the name of a brand new town which promises hope and plenty for the settlers. At the start of this story there is of course nothing there, and it’s not long before the man and the boy are not their either, they are dead and buried, but in the meantime myriads of flyers are printed to draw a host of new folk to build this bright shiny place. The building hasn’t yet begun in the first of Kevin Costner’s four-film epic, but we see the stories of the travellers on the way. And what a ragtag bunch they are, heroes, villains, misfits, the hurting and the hopeful. This is a tale of complex people who are searching for paradise amongst the violence, sand, grit and heat of the old west. A rabble converging on this town of promise and plenty.
Years ago I read James Michener’s The Covenant, about the history of South Africa. In that book the settlers were allowed to place a stick in the ground and walk for a day, and however far they got, that was the extent of their land. It was their ‘entitlement’. So many battles have been fought, so many people hurt, over the longing for land. And that continues to this day of course.
The writer of Hebrews chapter 4 asks us to set our sights on a new land, a new country, a place of rest, a place of shalom. Wholeness. Everything working together for good. But this is not so much a piece of real estate, as an attitude, a change of heart and mind. A new world found in Jesus. And not an entitlement but a gift. A rich young man once asked Jesus what he could do to inherit eternal life. It’s God who has made the first move, not us, he has chosen to adopt us into his family, to call us his children (see 1 John 3 v 1), because of the sacrifice and resurrection of his son. And in doing this we have become heirs of his promise of fullness of life. People of the promise. People who carry within us a glimpse of a new land of forever freedom.
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