That Feels Nice

I could feel the small ridges of sand pressed hard against my back, “That feels nice,” I thought. It’s strange what you think in those moments. So while I was keenly aware of those lines of pressure massaging my back, I could also feel an incessant pull on my right leg as the buoyancy of my board tried unsuccessfully to drag me back to the surface.

I was out of my depth.

Hundreds of kilometres to the North, cyclonic conditions battered the coastline, but where I lived had shifted from a surfers paradise to surfing utopia. Massive mountains of moving water lined up like a precise military parade and marched in fury to throw themselves against the sandbars on my home break. I remember standing on the point, board under my arm, watching in awe as the spectacle unfolded before me. I’d never ridden waves this big. They were terrifying, yet strangely alluring.

I had to get out there.

“That feels nice,” I thought. It’s strange what you think in those moments. It had all happened so fast. I saw it looming up with a speed that surprised me. This one was mine. I could hear the cries of encouragement from other surfers as they saw me turn and dig deep to match the speed of the wave. Full of false bravado, I yelled something unintelligible as the ocean picked me up with an effortless flick of the lip. I remember staring down the face, knowing that I was a fool. Then nothing. No vision. No falling. No impact. Nothing. Just the crushing weight of the ocean pinning me to the floor and those small ridges of sand pressed hard against my back.

That feeling, the furious force of the ocean bearing down with a weight I could not have imagined, has stuck with me ever since. Eventually I surfaced. Eventually I dragged my broken body and board back over the slippery stones that lined the point. Eventually I somehow walked back up the headland to my little home and stretched out on my bed and wept. I was safe, but somehow the weight was still there. There are nights I wake, gasping for breath, and for a brief moment, I feel it still.

That weight was a teacher. It taught me a severe but needed lesson. The ocean is a graceless master and inflicts a debt that must be paid.

I’ve felt other weights, ones not inflicted by the ocean, but instead by the curse of sin. Idols I’ve willingly bowed to have weighed me down and crushed the breath from my lungs. Shame and despair have burdened me to the point of panting for life, despairing that my head may not break the surface, that I might not reach the safety of shore. If you have felt these depths, have fallen under the shame of disobedience, have despaired at your own brokenness, then you too know the crushing weight of sin. We stare down the face of it, knowing we are a fool, knowing we are out of our depth.

Sin is a graceless master and inflicts a debt that must be paid…

It is at this precise moment that we must apply the gospel. We have no other hope. It is here, under this crushing weight, that we must cling to the hope we have in Christ. But let me assure you, it isn’t the only message that will reach you in your despair. There is another gospel, an anti-gospel, that I’m tempted to believe.

Sin is a graceless master and inflicts a debt that must be paid… therefore, I must pay what is owed.

This is an anti-gospel, yet its message is alluring. The idea that somehow I should pay the debt of my sin, entices me to embrace an age-old practice of covering my shame with fig-leaves. Emotional flagellation, the art of ‘punishing myself’, will always fall short of truly dealing with sin. Yet I am still tempted to try. I think, “If I can just punish myself sufficiently, I can prove to myself, or maybe to others, or even to God, that I am serious about setting things right.” But the problem in that sentence is the word, sufficiently—even the most extreme of our self-abuse is not enough. We are insufficient even in our ability to pay for our own debt. My emotional flagellation, my sincere asceticism, as pious as it feels, holds no spiritual value.

These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. (Colossians 2:23 ESV)

Instead, even as we gasp for breath, even as we reach for the light that seems so distant, even as we feel the crushing weight of sin, we must cast aside the temptation to pay for our own transgression and instead let life take its natural course. We must die, but we must die with Christ.

Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—“Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? (Colossians 2:18-22 ESV)

Sin is a graceless master and inflicts a debt that must be paid. But Jesus is our grace-filled master, the one who tasted death on our behalf, who freely offers life to the guilty, hope to the hopeless, and choice food to those with no money to buy.

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” (Isaiah 55:1 ESV)

These are the waves of grace that now break over us; in this is the great glory of the gospel and our only hope. Or as Jesus would say,

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30 ESV)

That feels nice.