Loosening the Load and Bearing It No More

Journeying along with Christian through our reading plan is proving to be steadying and stabilizing, or at least reminding me, when not steady and stable, of the need for perseverance. I'm enjoying Buynan's masterpiece immensely. Through the first bit of reading, however, I've had a quibble with the dream. Christian carries quite a load on his back for quite a way before he reaches the burden-bearer. Along the way, he's not directed straightaway to his relief. Even Evangelist seems to be too slow to lighten Christian's load. And Goodwill urges Christian to "be content to bear it, until thou comest to the place of deliverance . . . (31).

Yet finally, after Christian had encountered a number of poor traveling companions, Interpreter sends him on his way toward his deliverance. Still burdened, Christian runs, not without difficulty, up the highway called Salvation. Ascending he sees a place with a cross and, a little below, a grave. Approaching the cross, the load loosens and shortly falls from his back, tumbling into the mouth of the grave, so that he saw it no more. We then read: "Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, 'He hath given me rest, by his sorrow; and life, by his death'" (41). Christian then looked and wondered awhile, "for it was very surprising to him, that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden" (41).

This episode stands at the head of a number that recount the loosened load and the cross's continuing freeing influence in Christian's journey. For example, on page 43, "Christian gives three leaps for joy, and went on singing":

Thus far I did come loaden with my sin,
Nor could ought ease the grief that I was in,
Till I came hither: what a place is this!
Must here be the beginning of my bliss?
Must here the burden fall from off my back?
Must here the strings that bound it to me crack?
Bless'd Cross! Bless'd sepulchre! Bless'd rather be
The man that there was put to shame for me.

A little later in the journey, being a weary traveler, Christian seeks and finds rest at "a pleasant arbour, made by the Lord of the hill, for the refreshing of weary travellors" (46):

Thither therefore Christian got, where also he sat down to rest him. Then he pull'd his roll out of his bosom, and read therein to his comfort; he also now began afresh to take a review of the coat or garment that was given him as he stood by the cross.

Here we see Christian, post-conversion, pulling out of his chest (probably Bible memorization, but perhaps just a Bible itself) the good news of a garment (no doubt Christ's righteousness) given to him when he first looked to Christ on the cross. This is walking, traveling by faith, pressing on in the journey in the same way it began.

And so must be the whole of our journey to our heavenly homeland. We walk by faith, not by sight. And, as Buynan eloquently reminds us, that faith pre-eminently eyes the Christ of the cross, risen and exalted, Lord of all, interceding for his own, mediating in heaven as the Christian's robe of righteousness. "Bless'd Cross! Bless'd sepulchre! Bless'd rather be / The man that there was put to shame for me."