Zip-line to Glory

Several years ago, I led worship at a father-son retreat in Indiana. I cannot remember any of the songs we sang, a single message we heard, or even the identity of the keynote speaker. I do remember that weekend, however, as one of my all-time favorite weekends for one simple reason: I spent the weekend with my first-born son, Jonathan.

Three memories in particular stand out for me from that weekend: horseback riding, wall climbing, and, most notably, the zip line of death! The horseback riding was one of the two most satisfying rides of my life. (By the way, I have only been horseback riding two times!) The wall climbing was at once both one of the most proud moments of my life and one of the most humiliating. My shameful failure to conquer even the baby wall scarred me for life. Jonathan’s triumphs over all three walls – the beginner, the intermediate, and the master walls – impressed me to no end and fortified my perpetually growing joy that he’s my boy. I am so glad to be his dad!

My third memory relates to one of the half a dozen or so most powerfully existential experiences I have yet survived. In these intense moments, everything seemed to move in slow motion, except my mind. They are as close as I have yet come to out-of-body experiences because it seemed I was watching myself balance on the razor’s edge of time between the here-and-now and the hereafter. These are my peeks into eternity:

· The night when as a newly licensed driver I passed my first semi-truck on the slopes and curves that constitute the two lanes of US 50 between Brownstown and Seymour, Indiana. I was two-thirds of the way around before I saw the headlights of oncoming traffic leap over the rise. I still gulp and wonder how I made it through.

· The sunny Saturday afternoon when Donna looked into my eyes and said, “I do.” I did not fully grasp it then, and still have much to learn today, but I remember looking into her brown eyes and thinking something like, “Now it starts.”

· The events surrounding the births of each of our children are cauterized into my consciousness, especially the first time I held each child. “O Lord,” I thought, “Help us show them You.”

· The morning I lifted the head of my father’s vacated body in order to retrieve my youngest sister’s pillow for her. Dad was simply no longer there in that shell. I kissed his forehead anyway and whispered, “See you soon, Daddy.”

Add to this list the aforementioned zip line of death. Here’s what I recall. Picture a three-foot wide runway suspended sixty feet off the ground from a tower. Before we set our feet on the steps up to our appointment with destiny, our guides helped us strap on a harness and instructed us on the procedure to follow. I remember looking up and thinking, “That’s not so high.” Fifteen minutes later, I no longer held to that opinion as I sat on the ledge and felt the sway of our structure – an ominous lurch of some two or three feet back and forth which I did not notice from below.

Now I must make a point to tell you emphatically that I knew in my head that everything was going to be okay. We had watched several groups precede us. Everyone had survived. No one had been lost. I knew the harness and the cable and the hooks that secured me to the line were reliable. Bigger men than me had already successfully tested their mettle. Still, as I sat on the edge of the scaffold with a bird’s eye view of the ground and heard our instructor say, “Just lean forward and fall off on the count of three,” what I knew to be true was no longer any comfort whatsoever to my racing heart! I was about to die and nobody seemed to care or even notice! In fact, everybody, including my own flesh-and-blood, were grinning and laughing and whooping it up.

To this day, I do not know how I found the nerve to fall off that stand. I half-suspect that an angel nudged me over, or perhaps one of those twenty-something guides. I do know that not only did all the equipment work properly, but after the nanosecond of sheer terror when my weight left the structure for the zip line, the next 30 seconds or so were sheer delight. What a rush! The zip line of death was one of the most exhilarating and enlightening exercises of my life. It was worth it!

There is a message to my tale. The past few weeks have been saturated with hard news for many of the people I love. My brother-in-law’s dad passed away this week. Several members of our church family have received difficult reports from their doctors. Some of the sweetest, gentlest people I know now strain for their next breaths or find themselves exhausted after less than a dozen steps. And as they grapple with exhausting physical limitations, they also begin a more profound fight with their faith. More than one dear friend has confided in me recently, “Rob, I know heaven is my Home. I know Jesus has saved me. But part of me is still … afraid.”

I think of the zip line. I remember the strange mixture of confidence and terror. More than that, though, I remember the thrill, the adventure, once I left the ledge. Life has a way of bringing us to the edge of the ledge where faith and hope and confidence in the Unseen meet out dependence upon the slippery stuff of these shadowlands. The truth is, we would all be better people – better spouses, parents, siblings, children, friends, neighbors, and better Christ followers, if we learned to live the next five minutes as if they were our last five minutes (Thank you, Steven Curtis Chapman).

Let go of the ledge, beloved. Trust what we know by faith and His Word. Trust the harness of hope. Trust the cord fashioned by God’s love in Christ to carry you Home. Live for the zip line to Glory!

To the ends of the earth until the end of time!
Pastor Rob