Some time ago I was walking towards an escalator at the Charlotte Airport in North Carolina when I noticed that a young man was fixing it. As I approached him, the guy stood up and, to my surprise, he was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of a long stairway going to the clouds with the words: “Stairway to Heaven”.
If you have been on planet Earth, or near it, in 1971 or pretty much anytime after that, you probably know that is the title of the best known song by the English band “Led Zeppelin”.
I went on my way humming that song and smiling with the mental picture of what I had just seen, and as I tried to remember the lyrics I figured out that I really didn’t know them (I didn’t speak much English when I was 10 years old, and never bothered to go back and pay attention to the lyrics).
I checked the lyrics on my phone, and most of it didn’t make a lot of sense to me, so I checked what people say about it, and it still didn’t make much sense. Regardless, it is one of the best Rock and Roll songs of all times.
Another interesting “incident” associated with this song happened when my younger son was in High School. We were home and he started singing that song and I joined him. He stopped and asked: “You know that song?”, and I said “Hey, I am the one supposed to be surprised that you know it. This is from the 70’s, almost 20 years before you were born”.
But I digress…
Back to the song, it starts with the sentence “There’s a lady who’s sure / All that glitters is gold / And she’s buying a stairway to heaven”.
I know that is poetry, but it made me think that some people really believe they can acquire a way to Heaven. Maybe not buying a stairway, but working hard to deserve to be accepted there.
Well, you are not going to have enough money or good works to buy your ticket to Heaven, but guess what, I have a friend who bought tickets to Heaven, and he paid an enormous price for that: his life.
Good news is, he didn’t stay dead. He came back and offers those tickets for free:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.” John 14:6
You can’t beat that deal.
