Follow My Thread

I bought a book on Sunday. It’s Timothy Keller’s King’s Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus (Dutton, 2011). The book is about the life of Jesus according to the Gospel of Mark. The first half of the book is about Jesus as the King; the second half, Jesus’ Cross. The way Tim Keller interprets the text is ok, but the way he communicates the story of Jesus to modern readers is very good. As I read, I realize that not only do I learn the life of Jesus according to Mark, but also Keller’s communication skill. The way he uses illustrations is amazing. However, most of the illustrations that he draws from are sophisticated. You have to pay attention to get it. Once you get it, you are hooked and start to think about it.

To illustrate what it means to us when Jesus said to the disciples: “Come, follow me.” Tim Keller said:

About 150 years ago George MacDonald wrote a children’s book called The Princess and the Goblin. Irene, the protagonist, is eight years old. She has found an attic room in her house, and every so often her fairy grandmother appears there. When Irene goes to look for her she’s often not there, so one day her grandmother gives her a ring with a thread tied to it, leading to a little ball of thread. She explains that she’ll keep the ball.

“But I can’t see it,” says Irene.

“No. The thread is too fine for you to see it. You can only feel it.” With this assurance, Irene tests the thread.

“Now, listen,” says the grandmother, “If ever you find yourself in any danger…you must take off your ring and put it under the pillow of your bed. Then you must lay your forefinger…upon the thread, and follow the thread wherever it leads you.”

“Oh, how delightful! It will lead me to you, Grandmother, I know!”

“Yes,” said the grandmother, “but, remember, it may seem to you a very roundabout way indeed, and you must not doubt the thread. Of one thing you may be sure, that while you hold it, I hold it too.” A few days later Irene is in bed, and goblins get into the house. She hears them snarling out in the hallway, but she has the presence of mind to take off her ring and put it under the pillow. And she begins to feel the thread, knowing that it’s going to take her to her grandmother and to safety. But to her dismay, it takes her outside, and she realizes that it’s taking her right toward the cave of the goblins.

Inside the cave, the thread leads her up to a great heap of stones, a dead end. “The thought struck her, that at least she could follow the thread backwards, and thus get out…But the instant she tried to feel it backwards, it vanished from her tough.” The grandmother’s thread only worked forward, but forward it led into a heap of stones. Irene “burst into a wailing cry,” but after crying she realizes that the only way to follow the thread is to tear down the wall of stones. She begins tearing it down, stone by stone. Though her fingers are soon bleeding, she pulls and pulls.

Suddenly she hears a voice. It’s her friend Curdie, how has been trapped in the goblin’s cave! Curdie is astounded and asks, “Why, however, did you come here?” 

Irene replies that her grandmother sent her, “and I think I’ve found out way.”

After Irene has followed the thread and removed enough rocks to create an opening, Curdie starts to climb up out of the cave—but Irene keeps going deeper into the cave. Curdie objects: “Where are you going there? That’s not the way out. That’s where I couldn’t get out.”

“I know that,” says Irene. “But this is the way my thread goes, and I must follow it.” And indeed the thread proves trustworthy, because her grandmother is trustworthy. (pp. 22-25)

This story is a bit long. But it makes you think about the phrase: “But this is my thread goes, and I must follow it.” Jesus is trustworthy. An hour ago, I was reading Psalms. I paused, mediated, and prayed to God when I was reading Ps. 84:11b-12:

“No good thing will the Lord withhold from those who do what is right.

O Lord Almighty, happy are those who trust in you.”