Thrills and spills of Jesus

Pastor Eric Kregel

Around my 35th birthday, I finally broke down and attempted to learn how to snowboard. As a child of the ‘70s, I grew up on skis. Skiing, back then, was a different sport for families than it is today. Today, kids wear helmets, bubble-shaped skis, no poles, and extra padding for spills. Young children are harnessed to loving, watchful parents; older kids are given cell phones to check-in with mom, letting her know they made it safely down the slope. When I was a boy, they gave you long, skinny skis that guys at the pro-shop, for no extra cost, would wax to make them go faster. We were taken to the top of a high mountain and pushed off into a stark white, frost bitten plummet. If we dodged the moguls, avoided other skiers, held tight our razor sharp poles without impalement, and made it to the bottom, we were skiers and, more importantly, we were considered men. Skiers, back then I imagined, enjoyed an uncontested elegance. They could be seen sipping brandy in the chalet, wearing cable-knit sweaters and listening to soft jazz. On the slopes, Warren Miller chased them, making new documentaries. Sleek, neat, sophisticated people were skiers; James Bond, certainly, was a skier. And James Bond, under no circumstances, snowboarded. In high school and college, snowboarding came into vogue. Snowboarders were seen as slovenly, grungy kids who left single boot tracks across the pristine mountainside. They sat together on the mountain’s face, congregating like crows, daring each other to make the next jump. As skiers, we all told ourselves that these uncouth cousins would soon go away and the fad would end. It hasn’t. And the window was quickly closing on me to learn this new world, this “surfing the mountain” sport. I took it upon myself to learn snowboarding at Little Smoky. The slopes there are great, filled with soft snow and patient people who don’t complain when you crash into them. With snowboarding, I had to ignore all of my skiing instincts. With skiing, you lean backwards and move forward; with snowboarding, if you want to go right, you lean left and take the hill sideways. Getting over the idea of moving forward, only sideways, took me all the afternoon to own. I spent most of my time getting from the ground to a standing position. In skiing, you have poles that can hoist you up from the snow; with snowboarding, you just have your own personal yoga to get you standing. I boarded down the hill successfully with a group from church and it only took me 20 minutes, only to get back up the hill for other tries. With a morning of falling and crashes, I finally got up to the chalet, had lunch, and traded in my board for skis. I’ll admit, I had fun and want to do it again. Looking back, I could trace most of my wipe-outs to a single dynamic. Whenever I wanted to go right-forward, I would begin by leaning left-back and gain momentum. And then, when the speed increased, I’d panic and move right-forward. Tense and stiff, I threw off my balance and crashed. In short, I didn’t have faith in the board’s movement. “Faith” is a word tossed around in churches and by pastors, yet, sometimes, I don’t think we really know what it means. People say they “have faith”, encourage each other to “keep the faith”, and encourage everyone to have their own, unique “faith”. Thinking of snowboarding is an image of faith: if you want to move forward, lean back and trust the board to take you down the hill. It’s incredibly vulnerable, leaning the opposite way and, for that matter, so is having faith in Jesus Christ. We can’t be a Christian and be in control; there’s an absolute, without hesitation, trust in Him that cannot have any competition for faith to work. Most of our “spills” in life can be attributed to a lack of faith in Christ. Sure, we may begin with a faith in Jesus Christ but then we seek to be in control, we panic, and we lean forward. And spill. Having faith in Jesus Christ is central to Christianity, yet I know many of us (myself included) start well but spill when we try to take life into our own hands. We say we believe Jesus’ love is enough for our self-esteem, but then we run around making rules for everyone to prove we’re better than our neighbor; we say we trust Jesus’ story in the Bible as truth and then, when trouble comes, we skip out and look for “answers” anywhere else; or we know that being active with Jesus is very healthy, but then we get busy with everything else and miss church. In short, we lean forward and spill instead of having faith to fall back and enjoy life. Look to the snowboarder as a lesson about faith: lean back in Jesus Christ, allowing Him to take you through all of the adventures of the rest of your life.