Crossing the Bar
by Pastor John Dawson
Crossing the Bar
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam;
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Returns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
-Alfed Lord Tennyson (1889)
This poem was written 3 years before Tennyson’s death and he asked that it be included at the end of every book of his poems published. As such, it is his literary epitaph. It contains an expression of what he anticipated as his death and what would follow. It contains his own positive message of hope through faith in God. The line And may there be no sadness of farewell shows his hope that his friends and all who think of his death would not grieve unduly. When his friend Alfred Henry Hallam died at age 23, Tennison wrote In Memorandum. But because his friend’s death so affected him that he did not publish his poetry for 10 years. He hopes to alleviate the grief of his friends when it is his time to die.
The image of crossing the bar is of a boat—best to imagine a small boat—heading out to sea. The sandbar is the limit of the shallow water that is near the land so heading out into the open deep means the boat will no longer be close to the land. Indeed, the image in the poem is that the boat heads out and will never return. Crossing the bar may have scraping if the water is low. This is the area where the water may break, and the waves are very choppy. Getting beyond this point may be difficult for the boat, but it is necessary if one is to reach open sea.
The first stanza speaks of approaching death. Sunset and evening star describes the end of the day. The end of the light of day is the image of the end of life on earth. Rather than fight against the end, he hears the call of heaven. Our time on earth will end. Then begins eternity. Death does not take him as a surprise. It is just the next passage from our being here to rejoining God’s presence spiritually. The hope for no moaning of the bar means that the dying process will not physically be difficult or painful. He wants to look with expectation at what is before him, not be distracted by the process of dying.
The second verse extends this hope. A tide that is not all splash and foam, but one that follows in deeply and quietly, is the image of a peaceful death. There is exit and return. His human life came from God and is now being called home. This is a theme echoed by Christian writers throughout the ages. When we pray at gravesides, we commit the body to the earth from which it came. And we commit the spirit to God who gave it. Going home is not going to a place as much as it is going to God. God is our eternal home.
The third stanza echoes the first, but it has moved farther along in the process. He is not at the beginning of dying—sunset and evening star. Now it is twilight. Light is rapidly fading, The evening bell signals the end of day. The arrival of the dark is his death. He is now silent to us. This is a description of his death from the standpoint of someone who is near him. In other words, it is his death from the perspective of we who remain. Here is the encouragement for us who remain to not dwell in the sadness of farewell. He has left our plane for heaven, the place prepared for him by the Lord.
The last stanza is what he leaves us with. What does he expect to happen to him in death? He has no clear picture. It will be so different from the things that we experience daily that there is nothing to compare it to. The word bourne means a boundary. Here we are limited to the things that we experience in life. We are limited by time, place, physicality, and mortality. What is next does not have the limits that we have. It may be quite different from what he imagined or what we can imagine. But he is not afraid, nor even hesitant to go. We should not fear for him, nor for ourselves. This is a final declaration of faith to assuage our grieving.
No matter what his journey leads to, he is trusting in Christ. He goes with the hope of seeing his Pilot face to face. In this life I have not seen Jesus face to face. I have felt him heart to heart. But there will be a greater understanding and knowing of the Savior. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known (1 Cor 13:12). Beloved, we are God’s children, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we shall know that when he appears we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2).
Pastor John