On the Edge Before the Fall

I stood on the edge of the platform and looked out over the thin rope that stretched through the trees to another one far distant. My harness wrapped tightly around my waist and legs, and the carabiner hung in place on the upper rope to keep me from falling. Still, my heart pounded in my throat, and the world tilted first one way and then the other as the forty or so feet below my shoes became startlingly apparent.

The ropes' course instructor waited behind me. "When you're ready," he encouraged, "you can do it."

In that awful pause before I stepped out, I had all the regrets in the world. I liked the platform as much as one can like a stable foundation under one's feet. I didn't want to step off of it onto the instability that was the rope. I didn't want to put those steady boards behind me. 

I admit... I considered quitting. I could have turned to the instructor, told him that I'd decided not to complete the course after all. I could have climbed back down the ladder until my shaking body could rest on terra firma...

But I'd signed up for this course, quite literally. I'd been given a waiver to sign so that I could participate in this challenge, and I'd put my signature on the dotted line. 

And so, I focused on that long, long rope in front of me and tried hard not to look at the expanse of nothing-but-air all around me.

John 12:20-36 records a moment in time where Jesus faces down the long rope the Father has laid out for Him. He is coming to the end of an epoch in time -- one where He has ministered and preached and taught and traveled and done miracle after miracle. He's entered the gates of Jerusalem amid the cheering and adoring crowd of palm-branch-waving enthusiasts, and -- as the Pharisees say in 12:19: "Look how the whole world has gone after Him!"

John makes an interesting point. Some Greeks show up. They've traveled in to worship at the temple, though they are not Jews. They're foreigners, they're from distant lands, and they've heard about Jesus. They find Philip, who has a Greek name, so perhaps they feel comfortable making a request of him, and they say: "We would like to see Jesus."

So Philip tells Andrew, and he and Andrew lead the Greeks to Jesus. John doesn't record what conversation Jesus has with the Greeks -- his interest seems to be in the fact that Jesus has come for more than just the Jews. He has come for the whole world. John 12:32 says: "But I, when I am lifted up from the earth (crucified), will draw all men (mankind; ladies, we're in this, as well) to myself."

Jesus' suffering and dread that is almost palpable in the Garden of Gethsemane is foreshadowed here. He looks at His disciples, His friends, the ones who have stuck with Him through thick and thin for the past three years, and He says: "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."

He's the King of double-meanings. Meaning the First: He's preparing to die, and He uses the death of a seed so that new life can grow as an illustration of what is about to happen. Meaning the Second: He's also referring to the death His followers must die if they truly wish to whole-heartedly serve Him. One of my favorite verses, and one I've referred to several times in this blog is: "I have been crucified with Christ; now I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). 

In order for life to flow out of us, we must put Self to death, in order for Jesus to be glorified. Jesus says: "The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life" (John 12:25).

Jesus knows His mission, His purpose. He knows the hard thing He needs to do. But He dreads doing it. He has come from heaven to earth for this very purpose, but it doesn't make it any easier. He says: "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour?' No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name!" (John 12:27-28).

How often have we stood on the precipice of our "hard thing," looked over the edge, and wanted to turn back? How often have we had second thoughts, regrets, wished we could return to where we were, un-sign our signature, un-tremble our shaking knees?

At some point in that dread, Jesus faces down the fear that rises up before Him... and He commands it to lie down. "No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name!"

And He steps onto the one-way course that does not lead backward. 

When I moved from the platform to the rope, there was an identifiable and purposeful moment of declaring my trust that something beyond myself held my fate. In my case, it was harness and a carabiner. For Jesus, it was the will of His Father. 

Jesus' fear, in that moment, lies down. Satan, in that moment, is defeated. Glory, in that moment, breaks through with a clap of thunder -- quite literally. In John 12:28-29, it says: "Then a Voice came from heaven. 'I have glorified [My Name] and will glorify it again.' The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to [Jesus]."

In the moment before the final step when our securities fall away, we find our trust in the One Who lifts us up. The act of stepping out is itself the place where the trust happens. If we cling to the platform, we never put to death the past, nor do we find new life in moving forward.

I don't know about you, but I find myself at a place where I'm on the edge of a platform and staring around me at what seems to be instability wherever I look. Finding the courage to step off that platform is beyond me, but the Holy Spirit renews that call daily. And daily, He fills me with courage. 

Honestly... I'm a coward. I love my hidey-holes. I love my ladder back down to the ground. It's only through the love and grace of God that I can daily face down my rope and fall forward into the oh-so-secure arms of the Father.