Sheltering Under the Motorway

I attended a meeting at Grace Baptist Church in Stockport this month for church leaders. We were discussing the talks previously given at the God’s Glory Our Joy conference, which had tackled the issues of 'cultural Christianity' and Christian nationalism. I caught an earlier train than was necessary in order to insure against arriving late. For a change, the rail network functioned correctly and I arrived in that town with over an hour to spare. I looked on a map for a suitable place of occupation and identified what appeared to be a charming riverside walk which would take me from the town centre to the environs of Grace. Readers may be surprised to learn that the waterway in question is the great River Mersey, a name more readily associated with the beautiful city of Liverpool. It begins in Stockport and provided the historic boundary between Lancashire and Cheshire, and, earlier still, between the Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia, to which it lent its name.

Although only a fraction of the great breadth which it enjoys at Liverpool, the river is pleasantly lined by trees and foliage, the old industries and manufactories of Stockport giving way to housing and then fields and farms. I was rather enjoying myself until, contrary to the forecast, it began to rain. I was without umbrella (having left it at the first conference and fully intending to retrieve it that very morning). I did not fancy greeting my fellow pastors resembling a fish, so I took shelter under a wide bridge which spans the Mersey, and which bears the M60. I was only there a few minutes while the worst of the shower passed, but I did contemplate the oddity of sheltering under a motorway. It was about 9.25am, and the rushhour was over, but still the busy Mancunian road network was executing its heavy duty. The bridge’s bowels attracted the inevitable tokens of graffiti and some river rubbish which had caught on the pillars but it was otherwise a pleasant place to shelter. I have driven over that bridge several times (and probably waited, stationary, while the appalling quantity of traffic slowed to a standstill) but that day, it kept me dry from the elements.

We often speak of the Lord Jesus as the 'way' to God; indeed, it is a word He uses of Himself in the fourteenth of John. Yet He is also a 'shelter':

…often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not! Luke 13:34b

The Lord Jesus is the means by which we are brought to His heavenly Kingdom, but He is also the means by which we are protected, sheltered and preserved along the way. He is route, transport, travel insurance and destination all in one. Thank God, Christ is the whole package and our prize at journey's end.

I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. John 10:9

A D