Thursday, April 02, 2015

Meeting Jesus at the Walkway


Most people would be quick to admit that getting to know Jesus is a personal journey that involves no one else. In as much as we would like to have rules to what is probably the most important relationship of our lives, it is often intimate and personal.

That doesn’t mean however that we can’t collectively acknowledge what He has done, especially during Holy Week. Holy Week is sacredly celebrated in the country and one of fastest rising ways to do so is by visiting Walkway in Bonifacio Global City. Walkway was jumpstarted by an independent organization, Church Simplified, six years ago and has been attracting people from different walks of life, regardless of their own personal beliefs. The Walkway allows one to rediscover their faith through art installations, interactive stations, and even concerts by international Christian artists like Jars of Clay.

When asked what drew crowds to Walkway, Church Simplified founder and lead pastor Bebo Bharwani says, “The thing that is so powerful about Art is that it has the potential to make us think, feel, and experience that which we already know is true about ourselves but can’t express. Art also has the ability to breathe new life into ideas we know are important but have forgotten why they’re relevant.”

He continues, “The cross for example is such a powerful symbol. It tells us so many things about what God is like. It tells us that God is committed, He doesn’t give up, He doesn’t take the easy road, that God fights for love and that He loves us extravagantly. It also tells us about the broken condition of our hearts, the broken condition of the world, what we’ve made it to be- that it would take God to humble himself, to stoop down and experience the worse we had to offer - he did this so he could heal us.”

The Walkway allows one to rediscover this glorious gift on the most important week of our faith, “Because we’re so used to the image of the cross, because we see it everywhere, we have the tendency to become too familiar, the message of the cross flies over our heads. Art has a way of stopping us in our tracks and remind us why this matters. That’s what Walkway is - it’s using art - in this case, installation art and music to help us get a fresh vision for what we’ve known and embraced to be true.”

The Walkway also attracts agnostics and atheists and for Bebo the attraction could be because of the great love story displayed on the cross, “Even if you didn’t believe in God or Jesus, it’s still such a great love story, at some level it will still ring true because deep inside everyone wants to be loved the way God claims to love us.  I think that’s why even non-Christians are still attracted to Walkway.”

The Walkway also allows one to simply stop life’s busy routine to reflect on who God is personally for each person. It’s taking the time out to sit down and simply be aware of God’s presence in an interactive manner.

To end, Bebo how he would define Christianity and he was quick to say, “Christianity is about one message. God is for us. God is for you!  He has always been pursuing us. Jesus is the proof of that pursuit. Everything that has happened to you, your context and life experience has been designed so that we would seek God and reach out for him and that we would find, that he had been seeking and reaching out for us all along.”

**

Visit the Walkway at Bonifacio Global City from March 29 – April 05, 2015. International Christian artists Mutemath and Kye Kye will be performing as well, for more details visit Church Simplified on Facebook.

No comments: