My husband & I finally got to watch the documentary, Free Solo, this past weekend. Before watching it, we knew the ending, just by reading the description.
https://films.nationalgeographic.com/free-solo
From the National Geographic website, the documentary is, “a stunning, intimate and unflinching portrait of the free soloist climber Alex Honnold, as he prepares to achieve his lifelong dream: climbing the face of the world’s most famous rock … the 3,000ft El Capitan in Yosemite National Park … without a rope. Celebrated as one of the greatest athletic feats of any kind, Honnold’s climb set the ultimate standard: perfection or death. Succeeding in this challenge, Honnold enters his story in the annals of human achievement.”
He succeeds in this daring climb.
Nonetheless, I could feel my heart racing and my stomach gurgling as I watched the movie. I was sweaty and nervous for most of the movie.
Why? Why was it so thrilling and terrifying to watch?
John 4:46-53 46 Then Jesus came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. 47 When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48 Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” 49 The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my little boy dies.” 50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. 51 As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. 52 So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, “Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.” 53 The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with his whole household.
My small group had studied and discussed this passage from the Gospel of John the day I watched Free Solo. We marveled at verse 50. The official wants Jesus to come with him and heal his son. Jesus does not go with him, but instead tells the official to go home. “Go; your son will live.” And the royal official believed Jesus. He believed Jesus’ word and acted on it.
In essence, Jesus told the official the end of the movie – his son would live. Believing this, the official was able to walk away from Jesus, to go back home where his son had been ill without the healer with him, because the healer’s word was enough.
Did his heart race as he walked? Was his stomach churning? Was he sweating and nervous? Or did knowing the ending meant he walked home in peace, confidence, comforted?
My mother is one of those people who reads the end of the book before starting it to reduce her anxiety. I’m one of those people who won’t read the end first, but will race through a story to get to the end, missing details and symbolism and the author’s creativity in my haste.
Does knowing death has no victory, justice is assured affect how you live now?
Apparently, knowing the ending does not reduce my anxiety or fears. I always thought that meant I didn’t have enough faith. But observing my reaction to watching the documentary made me question the idea that nervousness and fear exposed a lack of faith or belief. I know the future is coming, but I do not live in the future. I am here in the present, in this moment. Here, there is pain and injustice, setbacks, oppression, lies, death and disappointment. It is not that I don’t believe in the victory of Christ over sin and death, it is that I fear and loathe the pain and suffering on the way to that great and glorious truth. Knowing that the pain of contractions would end in, result in, make possible the birth of my children didn’t actually help in coping with the pain.
Believing Jesus is to believe what he says, even when terrified. We don’t always get to see the miracle and we don’t always get the miracle we want. Believing Jesus is about trusting love, and sometimes that feels scary, even if it isn’t.