Stairway from Heaven

Stairway From Heaven

Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.

Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray. (Mark 6:39-46)

New Mexico is called the “Land of Enchantment.” And in this land of enchantment, there’s a chapel of wonder.

On the corner of Water Street and Old Santa Fe Trail, you’ll find Loretto Chapel. And if you were to step through its iron gate, you’d enter more than just a chapel courtyard. You’d enter another era. The chapel was completed in 1878, during a time when settlers stomped through muddy streets, donkeys brayed and wagon wheels groaned – the early morning sun spotlighting this gothic chapel as it sits against the backdrop of the desert hills of Santa Fe.

Loretto Chapel took five years to complete. Modeled after the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, its delicate sanctuary contains an altar, a rose window, and a choir loft. The choir loft is the reason for its wonder. Because if you were to have stood in that newly-built chapel in 1878, you might have seen the Sisters of Loretto looking forlornly at the balcony. Everything had been completed: the doors had been hung, the pews had been placed and the floor had been laid. Everything was finished. Even the choir loft. Except for one thing. There were no stairs leading up to the loft.

The architect had died suddenly during the chapel’s construction, and it was only after much of the chapel had already been completed that the builders realized – too late – that it was lacking any type of stairway to the loft. Unfortunately, the chapel was too small to accommodate a conventional stairway. The best builders and designers in the region had been summoned and simply shook their heads when consulted. “Impossible,” they murmured. There simply wasn’t enough room. A ladder would serve the purpose, but mar the ambiance. A ladder also presented a trip-and-fall hazard to the nuns who would be forced to scale it with their long habits.

The Sisters of Loretto, whose determination had led them from Kentucky to Santa Fe, now faced a challenge greater than their journey: a stairway that couldn’t be built. What they had dreamed of and what they could do were separated by twenty impossible feet.

So what did they do? Well, they did the only thing they could do. They ascended the mountain. Not the mountains near Santa Fe. They climbed an even higher mountain. They climbed the same mountain that Jesus climbed 1,800 years earlier in Bethsaida. They climbed the mountain of prayer.

“He went up on a mountainside by himself to pray.” (Mark 6:46)

Jesus faced an impossible task that day. More than five thousand people were ready to fight a battle he had not come to fight. How could he show them that he didn’t come to be a king, but to be a sacrifice? How could he take their eyes off an earthly kingdom so that they would see the spiritual one? How could they see the eternal when they only had eyes for the temporal? What Jesus dreamed of doing, and what he seemed able to do, were separated by an impossible gulf. So, Jesus prayed.

The Bible doesn’t tell us what he prayed about. Maybe he prayed that the eyes that had been blinded by power could see God’s truth; or that disciples, dizzied by success, could endure failure; or that leaders longing for power would follow him to a cross; or that the people desiring bread for the body would hunger for the bread of the soul. He prayed for the impossible to happen.

Then again, maybe not. Maybe he didn’t ask for anything. Maybe he just stood quietly in the presence of the Presence and basked in the Majesty. Perhaps he placed his war-weary self before the throne and simply rested. Maybe he lifted his head out of the confusion of earth long enough to hear the solution of heaven. Perhaps he was reminded that hard hearts don’t faze the Father; that problem people don’t perturb the Eternal One. We don’t know what he did, or what he said. But we do know the result. The hill from which he prayed that evening became a steppingstone, and the ensuing storm that night became a path that allowed the disciples to see Jesus as they had never seen him before.

And during the storm that followed, Jesus prayed again. The sky darkened. The winds howled. Yet he prayed. The people grumbled. The disciples doubted. Yet he prayed. When forced to choose between the muscles of men and the mountain of prayer, he prayed. Jesus didn’t try to do it by himself. So why should we?

There are crevasses in our life that we cannot cross alone. There are hearts in our world that we cannot change without help. There are mountains that we cannot climb until we climb His mountain. So, climb it. You’ll be amazed. The Sisters of Loretto were.

As the story goes, the nuns prayed for nine days. On the last day of the novena, a Mexican carpenter with a beard, a donkey and a toolbox appeared at the chapel looking for work. He explained that he’d heard they needed a stairway to a chapel loft, and he thought he could help. At this point, the mother superior had nothing to lose, so she gave him permission.

He went to work with crude tools, painstaking patience, a couple of tubs of water and uncanny skill. For eight months he worked – alone. Only working when the chapel was not in use; only working when no one could see; working only when the eyes who’d see were the eyes of the One who sees everything.

One morning the Sisters of Loretto entered the chapel to find their prayers had been answered. A masterpiece of carpentry spiraled from the floor to the loft. Two complete three-hundred-sixty-degree turns. Thirty-three steps held together with wooden pegs and no central support. The wood is said to be a variety of hard fir, one that is non-existent in New Mexico.

When the sisters turned to thank the craftsman, he was gone. He was never seen again. The nuns even ran ads in the newspaper trying to find him, but no trace of the man could be found. He never asked for money. He never asked for praise. He was a simple carpenter who did what no one else could do so singers could gain access to a choir loft that no one could reach, and sing.

So, if you’re ever in Santa Fe, step into this chapel of amazement and witness the fruit of prayer. Or, if you prefer, talk to the Master Carpenter yourself, right where you are. He’s already performed one impossible feat in your world. He, like the Santa Fe carpenter, built a stairway no one else could build. He, like the nameless craftsman, used material from another place. He, like the visitor to Loretto, came to span the gap between where you are and where you long to be.

Each year of his life is a step. Thirty-three paces, all equally spaced. Each step of the stair is an answered prayer. He built it so you can climb it.

And sing.

Grace,

Randy