Go on, Jump!

- by Tim Butt, July 2005

Years ago as a child, I read the “Famous Five” stories by Enid Blyton. They got involved in all kinds of action, mystery and adventure. I always wondered about their parents letting a group of children go off on holiday together without adult supervision and only a dog to guard them. The most adventure I ever managed was building a den with my brother at the bottom of my grandparents’ garden! Perhaps more recently The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars might serve to stimulate the imagination with excitement and dreams of adventure.

Many of us will be off on holiday during July and August. As school holidays approach, dreams of adventure in far-off places will fill the minds of our younger members. Whether your destination is foreign towns, countryside woods and forests, coastline beaches or mountains and valleys, there are all kinds of things you might find to explore and enjoy. Depending on how your year is going, you might simply be glad of the chance to escape from the toils and stresses of everyday life and find space to rest and relax with adventure being the last thing on your mind.

As Christians, we are called to the ultimate adventure; the life of faith. In last month’s edition of Outlook we thought a bit about the many ways in which faith finds application and expression in our lives. In the biggest and best, but also the toughest and most tender moments we experience, faith in Jesus is certainly a reality to be lived and not some kind of abstract concept, or theoretical notion. There is no lightweight philosophical dream behind the adventure of faith. When walking on the Earth, Jesus called to men and women like you and me and said “Come, follow me...” Not only that, but He commissioned them to spread out across the Earth and to live and speak the good news of His kingdom which has come and yet is still to gloriously come in its eternal fullness.

In 1997, I left the shores of Britain for the first time as part of a mission team, going to spend just over two weeks in and around Vancouver, Canada. During one of our rest days, we took time to cross to Vancouver Island and drive down through that beautiful landscape of breathtaking mountains and valleys. Coming upon a rather narrow but extremely deep valley with its high-standing road bridge, we all bundled out of the minibus excitedly having spotted the potential for adventure provided by a company offering bungee jumps. Some minutes later, that adventure was mine as I stood alone on a platform at the side of the bridge, my friends having deserted me and taken up a position on the valley-side from where they could watch.

I have never had a problem with heights and was full of excited, anticipatory adrenaline as I looked down towards the river several hundred feet beneath me and the boat ready to collect me. As I made my final preparations to jump, the attendant standing nearby offered me a count, “Three, two, one!” But no rush of wind, no bird-like sensation, no tensing and bouncing of the bungee cord. I stayed put. Frustrated with myself, the attendant and I chatted and then tried the count again. Thirty minutes later, having set the record for the longest time on the platform without a jump and with the attendant’s patience wearing thin, I stepped off the platform and onto the bridge. Now the laughing stock of my friends, whose camcorder batteries had run out and whose cameras only held photos of my imminent but failed jump, I tried to explain myself. The “Chicken Ticket” I was given is all I have to mark that adventure and I never did get to take it up and go back for a second attempt within the year.

Though at first you might think the link is tenuous, there are a number of points I want to draw from my failed adventure and translate into our experience of the adventure of faith.

1. Jesus says, “Come, follow me..."

The whole group of us (apart from some girls!) felt very excited about the opportunity to take a bungee jump. The whole trip to Canada was an adventure, but this looked amazing. But the opportunity was a choice and no one was forced. Neither my friends, nor the attendant could make me jump and in my defence, I always like to point out that I was the only one who gave it a go. Our response to Jesus might be similar. Friends and family might offer their opinion, shout encouragement, or throw abuse and mock us. God didn’t create humans as robots who would automatically choose to follow Him. He gave us free will and the opportunity to refuse His invitation. Even many of those who met Jesus face to face when He walked among them refused His invitation to follow Him and people continue to refuse Him today. You have a choice.

2. There’s an attendant to help and guide.

I wasn’t alone when stood on that platform. The guy who was with me had jumped on many occasions himself as well as having watched countless others jump. Beneath me in the boat were a few people who were ready to collect me and whose job was to help me make the most of my adventure. When Jesus was with His disciples, they felt confident and relatively safe, but they panicked at the suggestion that He was going to leave them. Jesus’ assurance to them was that after returning to heaven to be with Father God He would send His Holy Spirit to be a helper and a guide. That assurance is for us today in our adventure of faith as we choose to follow Him as much as it was for them. In Jesus’ own words, “Surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matt 28:20)

3. The adventure is dangerous.

I know that there are many people who would never even consider standing on the edge of a bridge, never mind jumping. One of my friends, Emma, wasn’t prepared to even walk across the bridge; such was her fear of heights. Every so often there are items in the news about bungee jumps or other adventures that have gone wrong. Just yesterday there was news of a man dying whilst climbing Mount Everest, despite the fact that he was an experienced climber and had climbed Everest before.

Jesus’ own life graphically demonstrates the danger that we face. For Him, death on the cross was the horror of his friends and followers as they watched from a distance. But after His resurrection, they chose to commit to the adventure of faith and the history of the early Church tells us of some of the dangers that they also faced, many of them being killed. The New Testament writer, Paul, speaks of our being in a “struggle” which is “not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Our adventure is one through which we have an enemy, the devil; but still, with eyes wide open, Jesus invites us to follow Him.

4. The necessary equipment is provided.

I have to admit that the harness around my ankles and the elasticated rope attached to it didn’t look very substantial. In fact, there were a couple of my friends who expressed concern about it. But I trusted that the attendants knew what they were doing and that the water all those hundreds of feet beneath the bridge wouldn’t be my place of death. There was even a guy in the boat dressed in diving gear, just in case the unthinkable should happen!

As we saw above, the Holy Spirit is our attendant in the adventure of faith. In every way He provides and protects so that despite the danger, we can continue. Primarily, one thinks of scripture, prayer and supernatural elements as the equipment we are given for the adventure of faith. Indeed, Paul spells these out in a section of teaching in His letter to the adventurers of the church at Ephesus whom he instructed to “put on the full armour of God”. You might find it helpful to read more about that (Eph 6:13-18) and to read through the rest of the bible too, getting to know how God equips His people for their adventure with Him. And in our own church here in Eindhoven, there are many people who have stories of God providing the necessary equipment for their adventures of faith as they follow Jesus.

The early Church was full of stories of God’s equipping and throughout Christian history; followers of Jesus have experienced the Holy Spirit working in and through them in acts of power. “Signs and wonders” suggests a sense of mystery, but actually, the work of the Spirit is far from mysterious, serving to give signs of God’s love and provoke wonder at His glory and power in changed lives. Jesus’ followers can also be equipped with all kinds of gifts enabling them to serve Him in spreading the news that His kingdom has come and will one day come with ultimate and consummating power and glory.

5. Even in the event of disaster, the adventure is a success!

When Jesus was put to death on the cross, feelings of failure, fear and despair filled the people who had chosen to follow Him. They hadn’t properly understood when Jesus explained how the adventure was going to work out, but when He rose from the dead and appeared before them in the flesh, everything changed. This Jesus, the one who calls people to follow Him, has beaten the power of death. Throughout history, Christians have died following Jesus in the adventure of faith, even to the present day. But the goal, the prize, the reward at the end of our adventure of faith is a new kind of life. Jesus promises perfect life with Him for all eternity and in choosing to follow Him even now while we live out our human lives, we get to taste something of what that life will be like.

“If you have nothing to die for, you have nothing to live for.”
The reason why I didn’t jump was that I had a mental block and just couldn’t let go of the railings. I don’t know what kind of strange psychological or subconscious things were going on inside me, but I can honestly say that the thirty minutes I had standing on that platform were the most infuriating experience of my life. I so desperately wanted to jump. That day, I missed out on what would have undoubtedly been one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. I wonder whether I will ever get such an opportunity again and if, once again, I would have the same problem in trying to let go.

When Jesus invites us to follow Him, He asks us to let go of the railings. There are all kinds of things we hold onto that give us a sense of safety, stability, comfort, etc, but all of them are superficial and without lasting substance. Jesus alone is able to offer us those things in a real and eternal way. As His followers, He offers us the opportunity to be part of the things that He is doing in the world, His work in inviting people to follow Him.

Often, Christians seem quite boring and uninteresting. One wonders whether being a follower of Jesus is anything special. In fact, they themselves seem bored and there’s certainly no sense of adventure. Like the saying quoted above, do they have anything to die for? Perhaps you find that being a follower of Jesus is dull, or you just feel nervous of what it might truly involve. You’re free to make your choice, one way or the other. But as one, who has committed himself to following Jesus in the adventure of faith, let me encourage you not to be like me on that bridge. Let go of the railings and begin to enjoy the most exhilarating experience imaginable.

Go on, jump!