The year was 1990. II was eleven years old, and skateboarding was HOT. Tony Hawk was soaring and Rodney Mullen was innovating street skating, popularizing tricks like the ollie. I watched in awe as kids jumped up and then slid down handrails (a grind). I dreamed of doing so myself.
At the top of my Christmas list was, of course, a skateboard.
I counted down the days until I would unwrap my rad new board. I bolted up on Christmas morning, raced down to the tree, and, to my dismay did not locate anything that looked like a skateboard. Sure enough, that morning ended in disappointment. But hope was not totally lost. That night we headed over to my adopted grandma’s for Christmas dinner. And sure enough, the package was juuust the right size. When time came to open presents, I ripped off the paper savagely. I was going to be so dope!
My heart fell. What I uncovered was the least cool skateboard in the history of skateboards: a K-Mart special. I voiced an insincere “thank you” to my grandma. The skateboard would never leave our garage. I was too embarrassed.
We human beings are odd creatures. Why do we care so much about what others think about us? Mark Twain famously said, “Man is the only animal that blushes… or needs to.”
How much does your embarrassment influence your spiritual life? How many times do you hold back in your pursuit of God for fear of what others might think of you?
Again and again the heroes in the Bible are those who press through embarrassment to pursue Christ. Consider the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years who pressed through the crowd to touch Christ (Matt. 9:20-22, Mk 5:25-34, Lk. 8:43-48). Or the woman at the well, who left the well to go to the town to tell them that Jesus “told me all that I ever did” (Jn 4:39)—a beautifully transparent (and embarrassing admission). Or consider the blind beggar Bartimaeus. Mark shares the story:
46 And they came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. 47 And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48 And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 49 And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.” 50 And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 51 And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you? ”And the blind man said to him, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight.” 52 And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way. Mark 10:46-52
Can you picture it? Bartimaeus is sitting by the dusty roadside outside Jericho when he hears the crowd approaching. It’s the man he has heard so much about: Jesus! The promised Messiah has come to “proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind” (Lk. 4:18). He has come traveled south from his hometown in Galilee for the holy days. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Bartimaeus shouts. But it is just the front edge of the crowd. Those in the crowd are embarrassed. This isn’t the impression they want to make on the Messiah: a disabled, unkept, foul-smelling beggar. “Be quiet, beggar,” they scold him. He’s undaunted, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!” he bellows. Multiple voices now join in, reproaching him, “Be silent! Know your place!” Bartimaeus is unflappable. He won’t let decorum prevent him from meeting Jesus. He cries out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Jesus stopped. “Call him.”
Throwing off his own earthly possessions, Bartimaeus sprang up and feels his way to Jesus.
“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks, compassion rich in his voice.
“Rabbi, let me recover my sight,” Bartimaeus pleads.
“Go your way; your faith has made you well.”
Ocular nerves came to life and light flooded into Bartimaeus’s pupils for the first time. Jesus invited Bartimaeus to “Go your way,” but the way Bartimaeus chooses is Jesus’s way. He followed “him on the way.” Where others had refused to heed Jesus’ invitation to follow him, Bartimaeus follows without even being invited. As Peter once said to Jesus, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” (Jn. 6:68).
In 1995, DC Talk released one of the most important records in the history of Christian music, “Jesus Freak.” In the cover song, they asked
What will people think when they hear that I'm a Jesus Freak?
What will people do when they find that it's true?
I don't really care if they lable me a Jesus Freak
There ain't no disguising the truth
Popular Christian artist Josiah Queen released a cover of “Jesus Freak” this year (he wasn’t even alive when the first album was released!). My young adult kids have been listening to Queen’s cover non-stop.
It is well reported that Generation Z is open to spirituality in a way Millennials are not. But that openness to spirituality is still suspicious of religion. They are perhaps the most “spiritual but not religious” generation to date. To plant one’s flag at the feet of Christ, after all, requires chutzpah. It risks embarrassment. Far better to be open to spiritual things than to be a (cough) “Jesus freak.”
But the riches of Jesus are not for the embarrassed. Jesus gives himself to the Bartimaeus’s of this world: those willing to be fools for him. Don’t let the skateboard of faith sit in your garage. Be Bartimaeus. Desperately cry out to him, even if the whole world is watching.
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Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash