Hello,
“I can do that,” I said with tongue in cheek while watching
teenage girls prance across a 4 inch beam, flipping frontwards and backwards
adding twists and turns as they went.
Over and over again as I watched the Olympics I found myself amazed by
the feats performed by the athletes, but no event quite as amazing as the
balance beam in women’s gymnastics.
The tumbling that those young women do on that skinny beam is, to me,
worthy of “ooo’s and ahhh’s” if done the floor. The fact, though, that they do them on a narrow beam several
feet above ground, well…. ”I can do that.” (Not!)
Maybe the balance beam is so captivating to me not only
because of the stellar skill of the women who “walk” across it, but also
because I see it as such a clear image of how I experience life. Life is a rather precarious journey,
where losing your balance is a pretty easy thing to do, especially if you find
yourself being flipped frontwards and backwards as you go. Although you can sometimes catch
yourself before you fall, falling is something that we all do, no matter how
practiced we are….and sometimes we do it to great pain, suffering,
disappointment and shame. The
challenge is to get back on the beam of life and go forward with confidence and
hope rather than fear and trepidation.
For me, that is part of what Sunday morning worship is all
about: being picked up by God, set back on the beam, and with God’s steadying
hand sturdying my wobbling knees hearing God say to me, “Ok. Let’s try that again.”
The world when you fall is quick to respond. Sometimes it laughs at you and tells
you you have failed. Sometimes it
gasps in shock and fright and says you have no business walking on that
beam. Sometimes, like a marine
drill sergeant , it barks at you, “Get up. Now do it again!”
But we Christians have come to discover that our God knows
quite a bit about the beam. After
all, he, in Jesus, was nailed to one and hung on one. Teased and ridiculed by the world as it clung on to him, and
when he fell from that beam it looked as though the beam had gotten the best of
him.
But not so. Not even three days in a tomb could seal his
fate, for God took a battering ram to death itself and Jesus walked out of the
grave on to a balance beam of life that he would never fall from again. More than an Olympic gymnast, Jesus is
master of the beam. Jesus is
master of the beam. Jesus is
master of the beam (not a typo…but purposely repeated so that it might break
through all of your pain, fear, hopelessness, disappointment, shame, and
timidity that you have known from your falling.) Jesus is master of the beam.
Every Sunday morning when we come to worship, Jesus greets
us as only Jesus can do, picking us up off the ground, lifting us back onto the
beam, steadying our wobbling knees with his studying hand and saying to us, “Ok.
Let’s try that again.”
And that is what Jesus will do every week when we gather in
worship, every week until, we, like him hear God’s battering ram break down the
gates of death and we find ourselves on a brand new balance beam of life, a
beam where we shall fall no more.
Jesus is master of the beam.
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace,
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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