Have you ever been paralyzed by risk?
I’m a firm believer in coming-of-age experiences. When each of my daughters turned ten, I took them on an epic adventure. With my first two we climbed a mountain. With my third we went spelunking. But the common denominator was that each trip had to have risk in order to build character, independence, and leadership. And of course, a chance to bond with their dad.
Why ten? When I was a kid, it was always ten. In Hong Kong in the 90s, dozens of missionary dads partook in a decades-old tradition of taking their sons and daughters on a 12-hour hike down Lantau Mountain to a series of spectacularly isolated mountain pools, each filled by a roaring waterfall: Perfect Pool, Middle Rock Pool, and Black Rock Pool. It was a tall task for a ten-year-old. Bees. Sword grass taller than your dad. Sometimes snakes. Hours of hiking down steep inclines. Deadly drop offs. Climbing up ropes and roots.
But perhaps my most vivid memory is standing on top of Middle Rock, about 30 feet above a tiny pool, shivering with adrenaline for about 30 minutes, listening to the encouragement of my dad and the ridicule of my brother and his friends. I couldn’t make the jump. I had waited years for this moment, and now I was paralyzed by risk.
I have encountered this scenario dozens of other times in my life. Haven’t you? A big move, especially when you have kids. Getting married when you know how young you are and how much you and your spouse will both change. Taking that new job. Deciding to live far from your family. Making that big decision at work that could make or break everything.
Typically my prayer in these scenarios is that Jesus would give me wisdom. But deep down I’ve often felt like Jesus doesn’t really understand. I’m a mortal human, so risk for me is a big deal, after all. Did Jesus really take risks?
One of my favorite passages to meditate on as we approach Christmas is Philippians 2. Here Jesus, in his incarnation, takes a risk by becoming a human:
[Jesus], being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking on the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
This is Jesus standing at the top of the rock, looking down at the pool below. Sure, the prospect of his life and death was a horrible one – horrors that I can’t fathom – but he was still God! And he still knew the outcome before it happened! The passage continues:
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow!
Surely God’s risk-taking feels vastly different from ours. Look at the outcome, known in advance! Is risk really even the right word for this? Does God get it?
But that’s not looking at it the right way. Here’s why: as much as we fixate on the problem, the fact is, like Jesus, we know the outcome, too.
Standing on top of that rock, my only thought was for the slippery surface I was standing on and the rocks below and the height and the feeling in my stomach and my brother’s taunts and my shaking knees. God, these things are so scary! God, help me! Help me with this problem before me!
But there was my dad down below, looking right at me. He had done this a hundred times. And there was joy all over his face, even after 25 minutes of waiting, knowing that soon I would make the leap – and that I would love it. That I would love the thrill of the fall and the rush of water as I landed in the pool. And that all the kids and dads would cheer for me when I finally did it.
After 30 long minutes, filled with this thought, I finally made the leap. Not by rationalizing or overcoming even, but by trusting my dad, who had done this before and who had brought me here because he loved me.
And after that leap it was a jump I made a hundred more times.
This Christmas, consider this: the incarnation models for us how we, too, should face risk. We can’t always rationalize or beat or tough out the risks we face. This is a recipe for paralysis.
Instead, Jesus’ incarnation teaches us to face risk like he did: by embracing the fact that we already know and can trust the outcome.
We have the perfect model of this approach. Remember Hebrews 12 (and I hope you don’t mind if I take some liberties with the metaphor):
“[Let us leap with courage into the pool chosen for us], fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross…consider him…so that you do not grow weary and lose heart.”
Like the incarnate Jesus, we can face the terrors of risk because of the eternal “joy set before us.” Our eternal fate, like his, is secure. And we can add courage upon courage because, in the first century, he leaped first. Jesus is the “pioneer…of our faith,” and any risk we face diminishes when we “fix our eyes on him” (Hebrews 12:2).
Whatever risk might be before you or your family this season (and I don’t say this lightly: I know the leaps for many in our community are truly terrifying), fix your eyes on the Incarnate Risk-Taker—the perfect model of embracing the greatest of risks. Like him, we know the outcome. And unlike him, we have one who has gone before us. May we have courage this Christmas to leap as he did—with joy and assurance.
— J.T.
