At the beginning of the week, Hubby and I were blessed with tickets to visit the Titanic Exhibition. The exhibition is an international one, travelling country to country displaying artefacts pulled from the actual wreck. The exhibition guides the visitor through some interesting facts about the ship’s conception, design and building and then it pauses. Dramatic sounds shriek in to the darkness and you are left with the sad sounds of mourning souls, Titanic is sinking and no one can stop it. It’s an emotional tour that leaves you with all the same emotions you tried to forget when Leonardo Dicaprio died in the epic 1997 blockbuster of the same name.
Yet one twist of the tour leads visitors into a wing of the exhibition that grips our minds and our imagination, the stories wing. Who died, who survived, who said goodbye and who stayed behind. Pictures and voices lead you in to a world that would have died that night, had it not been for the many people who have sought to keep Titanic alive. One story however, or should I say one family, really gripped me.
At the beginning of the tour, you get a ticket, it’s your entrance to the exhibition, but its cleverly designed as a lookalike ticket. A replica of the boarding pass each passenger travelled with, on to the Titanic and your ticket is marked with a name. A name of an actual passenger, only at the end of the tour do you discover “your fate.” Did you make it or did you perish beneath the waves. Oddly enough, my passenger was Elizabeth Brown, one of only three South Africans on board the titanic on its maiden voyage. The other two South Africans were her daughter Edith, who was 15 at the time and her husband Thomas William Solomon Brown. They were travelling to Seattle to start a new life for themselves.
I clutched the ticket in my hand and wondered at the sights they must have saw and the smells they must have smelled. And as I made my way in to the final wing, I was eager to learn about their fate, so was hubby. His ticket was of a young gentleman travelling on his own, hubby by – passed the rest to reach the survivors wall to discover the fate of his passenger. I stopped by the nearest picture to my left and my mouth hung open as I read the words Belongings of Thomas William Solomon Brown.
Thomas loaded his wife and his daughter in to lifeboat 14 and said goodbye to them. The last memory either had of him, was of his face, his cigar and his brandy glass. He waved goodbye to them, promising them he would see them again and then he waited for his fate. Thomas Brown died in the fateful sinking and his body was never found.
I stood there silent. They never saw him again.
Then I turned and saw a gold watch attached to a silver plaque. The gold watch sank with its owner down to the bottom of the ocean, to rest and there it remained for over 70 years until new technology enabled men to dig in to the wreck of the Titanic. One such dig unearthed this small pocket watch. It was so tiny. However did they find something so small in such a vast ocean, yet they did and guess who it belonged to? Thomas Brown, pinned to his jacket when he
entered the water. In 1987 this tiny piece of Thomas was discovered 13000 feet beneath the water and it was presented to his daughter Edith to keep. Written on the plaque beneath the watch were her words, “what a beautiful gift, to reunite a daughter with her father.”
entered the water. In 1987 this tiny piece of Thomas was discovered 13000 feet beneath the water and it was presented to his daughter Edith to keep. Written on the plaque beneath the watch were her words, “what a beautiful gift, to reunite a daughter with her father.”
Everything made sense to me in that moment as I stood looking in to that glass cabinet and I cried, as in really cried. Because I was an Edith Brown. I was torn from my Father because of something more devastating than the sinking of the Titanic, I was disconnected from my Papa because of sin. Yet He loaded me in to a lifeboat, kissed me on my forehead, promised me He would see me at home again and He lowered me in to the water so that I could get away. There He stood on the deck of a Wooden Cross, knowing His fate yet promising me it would be okay. He knew He would not walk away without having to die, He knew yet He kissed this child and promised me Life. Yeshua Messiah made the way, He took the sinking in my place and died so that I could make it out alive, so that I could go on and have life. He took my place and He gave me a gift I never knew I was missing. He gave me the world, the greatest gift, Yeshua reunited this daughter with her Father after all the years.
I have learned through the years that the Cross was a bridge and when Yeshua Messiah spread out His arms in death, He built that bridge so that I could run straight in to Father’s Arms. He is the Bridge Builder, the Burden Carrier, the Resurrection and the Life and my tears are tears of gratefulness for giving me life. Again through the touching story of Thomas Brown and his family, Yeshua reminded me again of this ultimate truth, of the depth of a Fathers Love. Thomas Brown went to rest at a depth of 13000 feet, a death that saved his family and something of his heart was brought up that day, when a precious belonging found the hands of his aged daughter. My Fathers Love is deeper then I could ever imagine, a Love no height or depth could ever measure, it’s an eternal Love with no beginning and no end.
Friends, we know of the Love of our Messiah, but do we really know His Love inside? Do we really understand that He came to reconcile us to our Papa God? Our problem was fatherlessness and fatherlessness is a root cause for pain, insecurity, idolatry, sin, legalism and substitution. Fatherlessness is a deep wound that can only be healed by the Pierced Hands of a Loving Saviour, give those Hands a chance with your heart.
2 Corinthians 5: 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
A Love so deep and so special, it came to use from beneath an ocean of sin and turned the tide on death and disconnectedness. All this was done because of a Fathers Great Love and how great that Precious Love is!
Much Love in Messiah!
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