Hello, I’m Jerry Stewart. We all remember as a child singing the words in school, “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue”. As I sang those words so long ago I tried to imagine what it was like “sailing the ocean blue”. In my own child’s mind I found myself comparing his ocean sail to be sort of like a boat ride. We’ve all taken boat rides – how hard or scary can that be?
But the truth was this – when Columbus set sail for parts unknown, a big portion of the world’s population believed that the world was flat, not round, and if you somehow ended up at the edge of the world, you would fall off and perish. There were also wild thoughts of sea monsters, and the reality of some very real dangers like horrific storms or becoming lost at sea. It was anything but a casual boat ride.
So, why would Columbus want to go on such a dangerous journey? Well, as a young boy Christopher was quite a dreamer, and he longed to be an explorer. Early on, as a young man, he worked as a mapmaker and he was convinced that there were strange and distant lands to the West still to be discovered so he invested all of his money in a plan to discover these new lands. But for eight long years, Columbus went from one Royal court to the other, asking for the financial support necessary for ships and supplies – and he was rejected by all.
But that still doesn’t explain what drove Christopher Columbus to discover America. It was simply and powerfully this – Christopher Columbus believed that his dream to explore was not just a dream – it was his destiny. He believed that God had chosen him to carry the light of Christ into the darkness of undiscovered heathen lands. Even his own name, Christopher, literally meant “Christ bearer”, and Columbus took this as a sign of his mission to spread the story of Christ to all nations; and because of his strong faith in a higher calling, Columbus would not quit.
Well, finally, the King and Queen of Spain did sponsor his voyage – and Columbus discovered America and on that now famous voyage in 1492, when he did finally discover land, on every island he set foot on, Columbus and his men erected large wooden crosses which Columbus said were “tokens of Jesus Christ his Lord and in honor of the Christian faith”.
Little did Christopher Columbus know that only about 100 years later, a small band of Christian people would come to America searching for a new home and a new start, without fear of religious persecution – these were the people we now know today as the Pilgrims.
Take a moment this Columbus Day Week and thank God that we live in a country that still allows freedom of religion without fear of persecution.
But the sad and sobering truth is this –
we may be closer to losing our freedom of religion than we even imagine.
