I was intrigued to watch a documentary on BBC iPlayer entitled Inside the Vatican. Various people were interviewed, including one of the altar boys. When he was asked about his thoughts on the Pope he replied that he felt the Pope was the bridge between heaven and earth. What a tragedy! Unfortunately for the altar boy, the bridge doesn't reach the far side or our side. It doesn't reach the far side because the Pope isn't divine, and it doesn't reach us in our need because he didn't die for our sins.
Job was longing for a mediator who could lay a hand on both God and man (Job 9 v 33). One has been provided, one who can lay His hand on God because He is divine, but can lay His hand on man because He is human - and because there is only one such person in the universe like that, i.e. both human and divine, Paul says, "There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1Timothy 2 v 5).
The amazing thing is that the bridge between heaven and earth was constructed from God's side - we were cut off from Him and had no way (and apart from Him we would have had no desire) to bridge the divide, but for some reason hidden in God's loving heart He wanted us to return to Him, and He made it possible by giving His Son to suffer for sins, "that He might bring us to God" (1Peter 3 v 18).
This bridge has no weight limits on it - it can bear the weight of the worst sinner with the heaviest load of guilt, and I invite my readers to depend on no man other that the Man, Christ Jesus, the one Mediator, the only bridge between heaven and earth.
