"AS I walked through the wilderness of this world, I came upon a certain place where there was a den; and I lay down in that place to sleep; and as I slept I dreamed a dream.
I dreamed, and behold I saw a man clothed in rags standing in a certain place, with his face [turned away from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden on his back. I looked and saw him open the book, and read therein; and as he read, he wept and trembled: and not being able to contain himself any longer, he broke out with a lamentable cry, saying, “What shall I do?”John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress
"I saw a man clothed in rags." Bunyan draws our attention to the initial person in his extraordinary story. Like any story the first descriptions of the characters are extremely important. Bunyan doesn't describe the surroundings, weather, or era.
Charles Dickens in "A Tale of Two Cities" tells us "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Fyodor Dostoevsky begins Crime and Punishment telling us that it was "an exceptional hot evening early in July." Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" states, "When he was thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow."
Bunyan wants us first and foremost to imagine a man clad in tattered remnants. Bunyan wants the reader to think this man is wanting and miserable. His fellow countryman may think this man is an important man, a well dressed man, a man of means, but we see this man as his creator sees him.
"All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts
are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the
wind our sins sweep us away.: Isaiah 64:6
The man may have fooled his neighbors, but not God. How often have we admired someone to then learn that they were captives to a secret sin? It has been proven that psychologically we treat people different by how tall they are or by the color of their hair or value of their clothes, but God does not show favoritism. He is not, like James said, a respecter of persons.
No comments:
Post a Comment