Tony
writes:
Walking
with people, one to one, is a potentially good way of creating an intimate
time, a time when thoughts can be shared, mulled over, teased out, and
new ideas investigated. Walking with one other person is, I believe,
one of the best ways of getting close to them. I have had the privilege
of walking with church leaders afar apart as central Canada
and northern Malaysia
. We have walked woods, and back
paths in urban areas, mostly in places where there were few other people.
As we walked heart opened to heart, heart joined to heart. Yes, there
is something very special about just walking with people.
Enoch
walked with God? So far walking conjures up pictures of two people ambling
side by side, but God is not a human figure. Does God ‘walk'? Perhaps
it was a case of Enoch walking with a distinct sense of God being there
with him. When you are aware of someone else with you, you invariably
speak words to them and they speak back; there is communication. So,
this ‘walking with God' suggests an awareness of God's presence and
an awareness of someone to talk to who also talks back. Now whether
this ‘walking' was literally going out and wandering from A to B, or
was simply wandering through life, I think, doesn't matter. It's simply
a picture of God of Enoch and God together, sharing together and, I
suggest, enjoying each other. I say this because people normally don't
go out on ‘walks' together unless they enjoy each other.
So
here they are, this elderly man, a father of a large family, wandering
through life, chatting informally with his God. Nothing pretentious,
nothing religious, nothing put on. When you're out with just one other,
there are no crowds to impress, no audience to play up to, just your
friend to share your heart with. It's a picture of friends together,
of being able to be natural together, just being yourself.
Then
he was no more? Hullo? Where's Enoch gone? Why has he gone? The second
question seems easy to answer, because we're told – God took him. Why?
Where?
So
why did God take Enoch? Perhaps because eventually He ‘takes' all of
us. All of us have a limited life span; that's just how it is. God in
His infinite wisdom decrees when our time will be up. It's difficult
if not impossible to understand it when it's a baby, a child, or a young
person, but with an older person, well they were at the end of their
allotted time, three score
years and ten, and sometimes some more!
‘Then
he was no more' suggests he simply disappeared, not that he just died.
How? Ah, something in the New Testament might give a clue. Up on the
so-called Mount of Transfiguration (Mt 17) Moses and Elijah appeared
before the three disciples with Jesus. Now we must assume that they
existed in heaven after they left the earth – another dimension, really
beyond our understanding – but it's like they came through an invisible
curtain that divides the two existences, and when they finished talking
with Jesus they disappeared back through the curtain into heaven.
Was
it like this for Enoch, that one day at God's bidding he just stepped
through that invisible curtain between worlds, left this one and immediately
was in heaven, body and all? There is an old story told in Sunday School
– at least I think that's where I heard it – that builds on this closeness,
this intimacy that we've considered previously. Here are God and Enoch
out walking together, conversing together, and the conversation goes
on and on, getting deeper and deeper, until they have wandered far from
Enoch's home. The Lord looks at the darkening sky and casually says
to Enoch, “My friend, we're rather a long way from your home. You won't
make it back before it's dark. Why don't you come back to my place instead?”
“Sounds good, Lord,” the old man replies, and goes.