Learning to Swim
I learned to swim at an early age. I remember,
before I started taking official lessons, my father taught me the basics of
swimming. He would hold me on my back and teach me to float. In time, I learned
to float on my belly and do the “doggy paddle.”
At some point, probably when I entered
elementary school, my parents enrolled me in the city’s swim classes. I thought
it was great. Our instructors were high school lifeguards. To me, they were the
coolest people I’d ever met. They taught us how to kick, how to do proper
strokes with our arms, and how to breathe. All was going well...until they
wanted us to dive.
At first, it wasn’t so bad. We stood on the side
of the pool and learned how to point our hands above our heads, how to lean
into the dive, and, then, how to jump into the water. But, it turned horrid
very quickly. They wanted us to dive off the diving board!
Jumping into the Deep End
Are you kidding me? They wanted me to climb up a
steep ladder, walk out onto a wobbly and narrow plank, and jump into water that
is deeper than I could ever imagine! And, they wanted me to trust them to catch
me if all went wrong! How could I do that? They were, after all, only high
school kids.
What I lacked, however, was trust. I didn’t
trust everything I’d been taught, even though, by this point, I did know how to
swim. I also didn’t trust the lifeguards. I had everything I needed,
except trust.
Sermon on the Plain
In many ways, Jesus’s vision of the Christian
walk is like diving into the deep end. The Orthodox Church has
been reading through the Gospel of Luke, and, when Jesus gives the Sermon
on the Plain (a lot like St. Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount but this is St.
Luke’s version), Jesus asks us to take a big jump.
Jesus tells us that being a Christian may mean
becoming poor. It may mean going hungry. We may end up weeping. And, to top it
all off, people will hate us, exclude us, and revile us. (Luke 6:20-23)
But, despite our treatment, we are to love our
enemies–even do good for them! We are to allow people to hit us by turning the
other cheek. We are to give away our clothing to those who beg for the shirts
on our backs. And, when people upset us, we are to forgive them–over and over
and over again. (Luke 6:27-31, 37-38).
Is Jesus really asking us to live this way? It
sounds like he’s asking us to jump into the deep end with no life
preserver.
Jesus Is Our Lifeguard
As scary as the Christian walk sounds, it is the
only true way to live. (Just imagine if everyone lived this way!) And, the good
news is that Jesus is there for us. He’s our lifeguard. This is the meaning of
the gospel lesson we read on Sunday: the raising of the widow’s son at Nain.
(Luke 7:11-17)
After the Sermon on the Plain, where Jesus asks us to jump into the deep
end of Christian living, he tells us that to live this way is like building a
house on a solid foundation. He then shows us the power of this way
of life.
First, Jesus heals the centurion’s servant from afar. All it took was
for the centurion to have trust. Then, Jesus raises the widow’s son. Entering
Nain, he sees a funeral possession and he tells the widow, “Do not weep.”
Remember, our Christian walk may leave us
weeping. But Jesus promises that we shall laugh. We may become poor or hungry,
but Jesus will give us the kingdom and fill us. Loving our enemies and
forgiving others may lead to our death, but our master, the Lord Jesus Christ,
has the power to raise us from the dead. He shows us this by raising the
widow’s son. This is the power of God, a god who has visited his people.
Cross and Resurrection
The Christian walk is hard. It requires a lot of
patience from us and a lot of compassion for others. It requires us to trust
and dive into the deep end. Perhaps, we’ll drown. The martyrs, over 2,000
years, have shown that following Christ isn’t always about a happy ending...at
least not in this life. But, this is the way of the cross. Jesus, who dived
into the deepest water humanity has ever known, ended up crucified.
But, the good news is, Jesus is risen!
Christ’s resurrection is confirmation that the Christian walk is the true way.
It’s vindication that loving our neighbors, even when they hate us, is the
right path to follow. It shows us that we should pick up our cross and jump off
the diving board.
Take a deep breath, trust God, and jump.
Jesus is there waiting to catch us.
By Fr.
Dustin Lyon
Source: http://www.dustinlyon.org/?p=1763
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