A few weeks ago Lauri and I took our family to the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center.  It has been almost twenty years since I’ve been to a circus and I had forgotten the scale of the performance—jugglers, trapeze artists, acrobats, high wire acts, firewalkers, contortionists, lion tamers, cowboys, dancers, motorcycle stuntmen, strongmen, clowns, elephants, horses, tigers, and the list goes on.  It is quite overwhelming.

As one amazing act followed another, I became aware that the audience seemed rather unenthusiastic.  Applause was intermittent and scattered.  So much so, in fact, that I found myself clapping louder and with greater frequency in a vain effort to make up the difference.  The strongman held up a pyramid of people totaling 1,250 pounds—yawn; the firewalker tread on a pallet of flaming broken glass—sigh; a woman twirled fifty feet above the ground (without a net) by her hair—ho-hum; and a motorcyclist sped across a high wire as a woman dangled from the exhaust pipe—crickets chirping.

Then, suddenly, all of that changed.

When the trapeze artist missed a quadruple somersault and fell into the net below, the crowd roared.  I don’t know if the applause was meant as encouragement to him or if it was only in that moment that the audience realized that all of these performances, which seemed so effortless at times, were actually the result of extraordinary skill, discipline, and years of practice.

And they did make it look effortless.  Watching the acrobats bound through the air so gracefully, for a moment one imagines that he could do it, too.  It looked that easy.  Perhaps when the man fell to earth from the trapeze, the rest of us fell with him in a metaphorical sense, bringing us back to the reality of our limitations.

There is a spiritual parallel here.  I am continually amazed by the number of religious people I meet who believe that their eternal salvation can be attained through their own efforts.  Grossly overestimating their own spiritual ability, they think that they can “do it”.  Think about this for just a moment.  Think about the well-documented fallibility of the human race—our penchant for cruelty, violence, greed, hatred, bigotry, and weakness.  Evil aside, who among us can do something as modest as keep a strict diet?  I can’t even manage to stop biting my fingernails without the occasional lapse.  Could such a man really earn his own salvation?  I think not.

However easy it might appear, a Christian’s salvation was not easily achieved.  It was purchased at the price of Christ’s blood.  His life was given “a ransom for many” precisely because we could attain salvation by no other means.  This is the meaning of grace.  Can’t do the spiritual trapeze?  Can’t tame the lions of your life?  Did you launch out onto a high wire only to discover that it isn’t as easy as you thought?  No worries.  Christ has done all of this and more for you!  Humble yourself.  Acknowledge your weakness.  And eternity is yours.

“But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” - I Corinthians 15:57

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