When in high school, a church friend and I were excited to go water skiing one Summer afternoon after we got off work. He had a real job… helping run a bearing business. I had the morning shift as a lifeguard at the local pool. We quickly drove the 45 minute drive to the lake, maybe a little quicker than the posted speed limit… at that age, we did everything as quickly as we could to make sure we got every last drop out of our days. People used to say we were either out on the lake running wide open or tied to the dock… asleep, there was no in between. We got to his Dad’s boat slip, threw our skis, vests, and rope into the boat and I started untying from the dock. Then he said, “oh man! I forgot the keys!” He said, “no skiing today, it will be dark before we get back home and come back up here.” I said, “Hang on! Do you have a screwdriver?” I had never hotwired a boat, but had watched McGuiver and thought, “how hard can this be?” He found a screwdriver, turned on the blower to get any flammable gasses out of the engine compartment, and I went to look under the driving console. I touched some wires with the screwdriver and a lot of sparks flew out, tried some other wires and more sparks, but then the engine started. We were in business! We skied hard until dusk, never turning the boat off, and we idled into the dock in the dark. We were quite proud of ourselves until we arrived at his house to see his dad standing in the door with the boat keys in his hand, laughing at us. He said, “you guys didn’t get to ski, did you?” To which we replied, “Sure we did, Bill hotwired your boat.” This, as you might imagine, was not the right answer. He was not happy with us at all. As a matter of fact, he grounded us from using his boat for several days. We were thinking, “how resourceful we are to make this happen.” He was thinking, “they ruined my boat.”
As Jesus was talking to the crowds about his cousin, John the Baptist, who had been imprisoned, He highlighted his extraordinary ministry as a prophet. Jesus said that John the Baptist was the greatest man to ever live. John was a rough and tumble prophet who told it like it was, and didn’t pull any punches. He said what he was going to say, regardless of how it landed. John the Baptist carried a heavy mantle to further God’s Kingdom. Jesus says, “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it” (Matthew 11:12) However, Jesus also told the crowds there is an easier and better way. He told them, ““Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”(Matthew 11:28–30) Sometimes we can try to force our lives to give us what we feel we need or deserve. We can force our faith on ourselves and others. We say, “life is only what you make it.” We hotwire it, jumpstart it, and fake it ‘til we make it, but Jesus says, simply connect your life to me and you no longer have to go around kicking down doors and hotwiring boats to find what faith and life are really about. Jesus says, “I’m gentle and humble in heart.” There is an easiness to our faith life when we connect with Jesus. When Simon Peter connected with the fact that Jesus was, “the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” Jesus told him, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”(Matthew 16:19) We gotta quit trying so hard to hotwire life and faith and remember that Jesus not only holds the keys and He gives them to us to share with others. Real life is more about connection with Jesus than a forceful determination to make our faith happen.
Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!
