DAILY DEVOTIONAL – April 26, 2021
“Freefall”
Prayer: Lord Jesus, have mercy upon us and our stubborn hearts that insist on striving to save ourselves with the dead and dying things of this world. Through this time we share in Your word, soften our hearts towards the Good News that You have done it all for us, that we might live in the full joy and freedom You have promised will be received by those who rest in Your hands. Amen.
Scripture: John 10:27-30
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
Devotional – “Freefall”
In his book Our Greatest Gift: A Meditation on Dying and Caring, the prolific author and theologian, Henri Nouwen, recounted a conversation he had with a particularly unique group of performers that taught him a lot about what it means to live by faith and trust in God. I’d like to share an excerpt from Nouwen’s book with you for today’s devotional. Nouwen wrote:
“The Flying Rodleighs are trapeze artists who perform in the German circus. When the circus came to Freiburg two years ago, my friends Franz and Reny invited me and my father to see the show. I will never forget how enraptured I became when I first saw the Rodleighs move through the air, flying and catching as elegant dancers. The next day, I returned to the circus to see them again and introduced myself to them as one of their great fans. They invited me to attend their practice sessions, gave me free tickets, asked me to dinner, and suggested I travel with them for a week in the near future. I did, and we became good friends.
One day, I was sitting with Rodleigh, the leader of the troupe, in his caravan, talking about flying. He said, ‘As a flyer, I must have complete trust in my catcher. The public might think that I am the great star of the trapeze, but the real star is Joe, my catcher. He has to be there for me with split-second precision and grab me out of the air as I come to him in the long jump.’ ‘How does it work?’ I asked. ‘The secret,’ Rodleigh said, ‘is that the flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything. When I fly to Joe, I have simply to stretch out my arms and hands and wait for him to catch me and pull me safely over the apron behind the catchbar.’ “‘You do nothing!’ I said, surprised. ‘Nothing,’ Rodleigh repeated. ‘The worst thing the flyer can do is to try to catch the catcher. I am not supposed to catch Joe. It’s Joe’s task to catch me. If I grabbed Joe’s wrists, I might break them, or he might break mine, and that would be the end for both of us. A flyer must fly, and a catcher must catch, and the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him.’”
What a powerful picture of what it means to walk by faith in God.
It is common to refer the moment when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit as, “The Fall.” We call it that because sin caused us to fall out of the close and intimate relationship we had with God and that God created us for. God is holy, and righteous, with Him alone all glory dwells, and as such God is understood to be and Scripture declares Him to be “high” above all things. For example, Psalm 97:9 says, “For you, O Lord, are most high over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods.” In speaking of Jesus Christ’s return to the glory He had with the Father before the world began, Philippians 2 says in verse 8-10 that because Jesus “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Though we are not all flying through the air like a circus trapeze flyer, we have all fallen in sin. One could say that until Christ returns, or until we die and go to be with Him, we are falling still because, though we have been declared and in fact are forgiven and even already risen with Christ through faith in His resurrection, we still sin everyday – we still fall everyday. To walk by faith in Jesus Christ means to, as Rodleigh said, “do nothing.” Just as the worst thing a flyer can do is try to catch the catcher, the worst thing we can do is think of our faith or act as if our faith is about our attempts to catch or hold onto God. That is not what Scripture means when it talks about faith. A right understanding of walking by faith is to trust, with outstretched arms to heaven, that God will be there for us perfectly every day and in every way, because He has already caught us and lifted us up in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
As Jesus hung crucified and in perfect faithfulness and obedience to the will of His Father, with His own arms outstretched, nailed to a cross, and His blood being poured out for the forgiveness and salvation of the whole world, Jesus said, “It is finished.” You see? It’s God’s job, Jesus’ job to catch us – and He has. When Christ rose on Easter morning that proved He was and is God and faithful to His every word, and He has promised us, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
We live in the freedom of the Gospel when we believe there is nothing for us to do in order to be saved, and when we live and walk in accordance with that same truth. So, maybe another way we can understand what it means to believe in Jesus, trust Him, and follow Him walking by faith, is to fall by faith – into the merciful and mighty nail-pierced hands that have already outstretched to catch us, and that already hold us safe and secure in the salvation He has accomplished for us.
Thanks for joining me for another daily devotional, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today, and has already taken care of tomorrow.
