The Bungee Cord

Hello,

As you know, the Winter Olympics concluded yesterday. Among the amazing athletes, there was one that caught my attention as truly remarkable: a cross-county skier from Haiti. I was scrolling through some of the Olympic highlights, and I came across Stevenson Savart finishing his race. He finished far from the lead, but even that he finished, coming from Haiti, was astounding. I don’t think that a flake of snow has ever fallen in Haiti, and so I thought to myself as I saw him sliding across the finish line, “How could a cross-country skier come out of Haiti?” But he did.

Almost the same thing was said of Jesus by one of his disciples to be, Nathanael, when he was told about Jesus, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nazareth was a small town off the beaten trail, kept small due to a limited supply of water there. When Nathanael was told by his brother that he had met the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, Nathanael was astounded. Nazareth was a sleepy little town. No powerful people lived there. The temple wasn’t there. If he hadn’t met Jesus face to face, it certainly would have been incredible to think that the Messiah would have come from Nazareth.

I have heard Nathanael’s question posed even in our day as people are told that the Messiah, the one to save the world…the cosmos from the self-destroying power of sin, would come out of Nazareth. How could such a monumental happening come out of one from a small sand swept town, centuries ago. The plausibility of such a thing seems to many unbelievable, if not laughable.

Yet, much like the Haitian cross-country skier whose crossing of the finish line answered the question, “How could a cross-country skier come out of Haiti?”, when this Nazarene, Jesus, crossed the finish line, so also was the Nathanael’s question, and those who have echoed his question through the centuries, answered. “He did!”

When Jesus hung on the finish line of the cross, and yelled out, “It is finished.”, Jesus, with the power of God almighty, gathered unto himself anything and everything in creation that might try and pull God’s handiwork from God, and he brought it all to death with him. Dead as a cross nail, both Jesus and sin. And when Jesus took his first step out of death’s tomb, it was only he that arose, everything else stayed in the grave, never to live again, powerless to God’s mercy.

I looked up Stevenson Savart, and I found out that although he was born in Haiti, he grew up in France having been adopted. That is how an Olympic cross county skier came from Haiti. Jesus Christ, who grew up in Nazareth, had a heavenly home from before the beginning of time (John 1), and that is how something eternally good came out of Nazareth.

Haiti. Nazareth. The finish line is the answer to seemingly incredulous questions. He did!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger