“Nordic combined skiing” is so named because it combines ski jumping and cross-country skiing. The sport has been dominated in recent years by Norwegian athlete Jarl Magnus Riiber, considered by NBC analyst Johnny Spillane to be “the best Nordic combined skier ever.” As Riiber prepared to compete in this year’s Olympics, Spillane predicted, “If he has a good day, he’s pretty much unstoppable.”

He didn’t have a good day.

Riiber tested positive for COVID-19 upon his arrival at the Games, missing his first event and every training session. He cleared isolation on Monday in time to ski cross-country for ten kilometers on Tuesday. As he entered the first of four 2.5-kilometer loops on the course, he came to a fork. To the left was the cross-country circuit; to the right was the path to the finish line. He had not had a chance to practice on the track, so he had to guess and picked the lane on the right.

He chose poorly. 

After skiing around fifty yards, he realized he was going the wrong way and turned around. It was too late, however—he’d frittered away his lead and finished in eighth place. “It’s a silly mistake,” Riiber said later, “and it’s not fun to show the world that I’m maybe wasting a gold medal on that.”

Let’s consider his mishap as a cultural parable.

What George Clooney thinks about heaven and hell

There are many reasons to believe that we’re skiing in the wrong direction these days, but unlike Jarl Magnus Riiber, it’s not too late to turn around.

Let’s begin by identifying the wrong lane. From surging inflation to rising sea levels to religious persecution to continuing tensions in Ukraine, it’s harder to find good news than bad news in the news.

Harvard history professor Tiya Miles writes for the New York Times: “Everyone around me seems to be talking about the end. The end of nearly a million American lives in the Covid pandemic; the end of American democracy; the end of a public bulwark against racism and blatant antisemitism; the end of the post-Cold War peace in Europe; the end of the stable climate; and the end of our children’s best futures, to name a few undeniable possibilities. A condition of apocalyptic anxiety has overtaken us, raising our collective blood pressure, and sending us deeper into a maelstrom of suspicion, conspiracy thinking, and pessimism.”

Filmmaker Woody Allen complained ironically, “Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering—and it’s all over much too soon.” Actor George Clooney added, “I don’t believe in heaven and hell. All I know is that as an individual, I won’t allow this life—the only thing I know to exist—to be wasted.”

They and the multitudes who share their skepticism obviously do not believe that Jesus died and rose again, offering each of us eternal life through his grace and “abundant” life every day (John 10:10). They don’t agree that Christians can now “rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4) because we are “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

In short, they do not believe that Jesus is who he claims to be, and their unbelief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This is a wrong path Christians must beware, for it is open to us as well.

A girl and boy I will never forget

Mark 6 tells us that when Jesus returned to his hometown of Nazareth, the people were skeptical and “took offense at him” (v. 3). As a result, “he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief” (vv. 5–6).

God created us in his image (Genesis 1:27) with free will and a capacity for choice that he chooses to honor. He therefore will “stand at the door and knock,” waiting for us to open our hearts to him (Revelation 3:20). If we do not believe he is omnipotent, we are unlikely to seek his power for our problems. If we do not believe he is omniscient, we are unlikely to seek his guidance for our decisions. If we do not believe he is omnibenevolent, we are unlikely to trust that his will is best for us.

As a result, we will not experience his power, wisdom, or love. The less we experience of God, the less we believe in him, and the less we believe in him, the less we experience of him. Taking this wrong path inevitably leads us further down the wrong path.

By contrast, I have seen what happens when people take the right path, choosing to believe that Jesus is who he says he is and that he will do what he says he will do. I have seen Cuban Christians who have no medicines turn to the Great Physician and then experience miraculous healings. I have seen Muslim-background believers facing enormous oppression turn to Jesus for strength and then stand courageously for their Lord.

I will always remember the teenage girl I met in East Malaysia decades ago. Her father told her that if she was baptized as a Christian she could never go home again, so she brought her luggage to the church. And the young Christian I met in Singapore who faced abuse from his father every time he went to church but continued living at home because, as he explained, his father “needed to know about Jesus.”

“God does not give us overcoming life”

A relationship with God, like a relationship with anyone else, requires a commitment that transcends the evidence and becomes self-validating. You cannot prove that a job is the right job until you take it. You examine the evidence, but then you must step beyond the evidence into a relationship. It is the same with being married, or having children, or even reading this article. All relationships require a step of faith that becomes self-validating once we take it.

Oswald Chambers was right: “God does not give us overcoming life; he gives us life as we overcome” (his emphasis). He illustrates: “Our Lord said to the man with the withered hand—’Stretch forth thy hand,’ and as soon as the man did so, his hand was healed, but he had to take the initiative. If we will do the overcoming, we shall find we are inspired of God because he gives life immediately.”

What “overcoming” path is God asking you to choose today?

Denison Forum

Actor and comedian Bob Saget died from accidental head trauma, a Florida medical examiner declared yesterday. “His injuries were most likely incurred from an unwitnessed fall,” according to Dr. Joshua Stephany, who added that no illicit drugs or toxins were found in his system. Mr. Saget was found in his Orlando hotel room by hotel security on January 9 and pronounced dead at the scene.

We also learned yesterday that Prince Charles has tested positive for COVID-19 for the second time. Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II and Spain’s King Felipe VI announced this week that they also tested positive for the virus.

This news is relevant to Sunday’s Super Bowl in ways that might not be obvious but are deeply significant for our lives today.

Why do we care?

Front row seats at the big game can be yours for $62,095 each. You could buy a thirty-second ad for $6.5 to $7 million. You could star in one of these commercials, but apparently you have to be a superstar celebrity first.

Or you can be one of the one hundred million people who are expected to watch the game in the US. According to the Athletic, only two non-Super Bowl programs—the February 1983 MASH finale and the 1978 Leon Spinks–Muhammad Ali rematch—rank among the all-time top thirty US broadcasts for audience size.

On one level, this is merely a football game. Nothing that happens Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles will resolve the crisis in Ukraine, the truck blockade at the US–Canadian border, or the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. On another level, it is an opportunity for football immortality for the winners.

America is a celebrity-driven culture in ways that have only been exacerbated by pandemic quarantines, the explosion of social media, and the proliferation of streaming entertainment. Mr. Saget’s death was tragic, but only one of the 7,708 deaths that occur on average each day in the US. The monarchs who tested positive for COVID-19 are three of the more than 2.5 million confirmed cases each day.

We care about athletes who win championships, celebrities who fall ill or die, actors who are nominated for Oscars, and singers who win music awards because many of us live vicariously through them.

Why is this?

How to “live peaceably with all”

This week, I’ve been discussing the significance and implications of Christians’ status as the “children of God.” We have noted that we are loved passionately and unconditionally by our Father and thus called and privileged to love our fellow Christians and those outside the faith as our Father loves us.

Let’s close with this fact: When we truly believe that we are who God says we are, we find peace the world can neither give nor take and significance that lasts forever.

Many of us fixate on athletes and celebrities because our secularized culture has conditioned us to measure success by popularity, performance, and possessions. But all three are fleeting. Just ask any former celebrity, retired athlete, or now-bankrupt former billionaire. Then consider the presidents and kings, athletes and tycoons who now own the same six feet of dirt that will be yours and mine one day (if the Lord tarries).

Now decide that you want to define yourself as God defines you. Decide that your status and identity as the child of God is the foundational fact about you. Decide that there is nothing you can do to make God love you any more or less than he already does. Decide that you therefore need nothing the world can give or take, that you are a child of the King of kings and Lord of lords.

Now you are free to love others whether they love you or not. You are free to serve Jesus whether the world rewards you or punishes you for your service.

You can “bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them” (Romans 12:14). You can “rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (v. 15). You can “live in harmony with one another” and “associate with the lowly” (v. 16). You can “repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all” (v. 17). And, “If possible, so far as it depends on you,” you can “live peaceably with all” (v. 18).

Imagine a world where everyone did this. Or a country, a state, a city, a community, or a family. Or a single Christian.

Why not you? Why not today?

Galaxies in the eye of a needle

Philip Yancey writes: “Scientists now believe that if you had unlimited vision, you could hold a sewing needle at arm’s length toward the night sky and see ten thousand galaxies in the eye of the needle. Move it an inch to the left and you’d find ten thousand more. Same to the right, or no matter where else you moved it. There are approximately a trillion galaxies out there, each encompassing an average of one hundred to two hundred billion stars.”

If Jesus is your Lord, you are the child of the God who made all of that.

Now, what’s your problem?

Denison Forum