We Used to Call It "Rasslin'

[HKHaugan]

We Used to Call It ‘Rasslin.’

      There’s real wrestling and there’s fake wrestling.  One is Greco-Roman and the other is TV.  There’s a difference between the two.  The first is slow, tedious, tense and tiring.  It takes controlled emotion and strategy.  It is not something that draws advertisers since the general public is not drawn to its slow action.  The second is fake wrestling, showmanship extraordinaire, and thousands seem to enjoy the sweat, muscle and flamboyant action, especially the ‘Hulks’ and ‘Rocks.’  It’s vicariously thrilling.  It gives you a sense of being part of something you can’t do but wish you could. For the ‘rassler’ it demands time, energy and practice but is seen for what it is, entertainment.  A significant difference is the passion in those who do the Greco-Roman style.  It is an inner passion for the sport itself while TV is for fame and wealth. 

       Both have counterparts.  There is wrestling for power and wealth that is the nature of politics, economics, pro sports and social standing.  Then there is the real wrestling which is spiritual and personal.  If you follow this dynamic of wrestling in Scripture you can see the external power wrestling of Pharaoh, Rome, Pharisees and religionists.  Then there is the internal spiritual wrestling of Abraham, Jacob, David, Joseph when they had their ‘dark nights’ wrestling with God.  One is fake and the other is real. One is based on faith, the other, fear.  Fake because everyone involved dies as do their systems.  Spiritual wrestling is real because it is spiritual and personal and relational and determines where each of us ends up eternally.

      This brings us to the part where our personal struggle emerges in the course of history.  As the Lord rightly asked Adam, so He asks you and me, “Where are you?”  For Adam and for us it is a spiritual question.  Where are we spiritually?  Let’s take a spiritual path for the answer.  John Stott in His commentary on Galatians introduces the nature of Paul’s being chosen to be the Apostle to the Gentiles in Ch.1:13-14.  He gives us three observations for us to ponder.

First, God “set me apart before I was born.”

Second, being chosen before birth led to his historical call. God “called me through his grace,”

Thirdly, God “was pleased to reveal his Son to me.”

       What the Holy Spirit led John to write about Paul could very well be applied to himself.  John had a special gift of discernment when it came to Scripture.  His life was devoted to it, being able to take its words and make them sensible to believers.  He was never married.  His life’s partner was the Scripture. 

       The reason I started with those insights about Paul was that, in a sense, each of us has been given those three spiritual realities.  Even though we were conceived in sin (Ps.51:5), spiritually separated from God and one another, alone, we were still conscious ‘I am’s, still loved by God. Here is the truth about each of us.

       First, we were each set apart before we were born (Ps.139:13-16).  Set apart in the sense of our personal uniqueness, our individuality.  

       Second, that unique individuality was created in the ‘image and likeness of God (Gen.1:26-27).’  Therefore, it was a calling through His grace, ‘grace’ being His personal love for each of us, the ‘why’ He created us.  He wanted us to exist and to be like Him.  That is, as His image, a unique person with a mind, heart and spirit.  As His likeness, spiritual, relational and loving.  This defines who and what we are when we say image and likeness.

       Third, the whole process of our personal day-to-day existence which includes our purpose, our meaning, our lifestyle and our destiny, has been revealed in His Son Jesus Christ.  He is the exact image of God, His exact likeness (John 1:14, Col.1:15, Heb.1:3).  It pleased the Lord God to do this.  Yes, God gave us the freedom of choice.  He is pleased when we accept His offer.  It is lovingly given to be freely received.  No duress, no intimidation and through applied reason (Rom.12:2).  Just as Jacob wrestled with the Lord in his ‘dark night of the soul’ so we too may have to do the same.  From our birth to our death the process is a spiritual one.  We grow dying to one moment and living anew in the next until our final physical moment.  It is the unseen process being lived out in the seen for which each of us has been chosen.  It is through Jesus that we are born physically and reborn spiritually.  As we live, we learn.  As we learn we grow.  As we grow we mature.  As we mature, we become like God, graceful, loving and faithful.  This is a ‘rasslin’ match we were born into. 

       If you remember when we were young, we used to kid around and grab each other and wrestle.  It was just a kid thing and we laughed, tumbled around a bit and someone usually gave in.  Clothes full of grass and dirt, we wiped ourselves off and went on with whatever the next game was.  But there was also the time when the wrestling got serious and someone was going to give in because they were either stronger, smarter of angrier than us.  The Lord Jesus faced an angry, deceitful and cunning adversary, the devil, who was serious about getting Jesus to give in.  This was an internal struggle.  The devil was working hard to derail Jesus all His life.   Jesus was always at the point of having to choose what hold would get Him into the next moment.  He always made the right choice.  He held on to His Father’s Word in every circumstance regardless of the pressure of the moment.  He showed the power of the Holy Spirit with every choice he made.

       The gift of Jesus to be our personal Savior and Lord is our relational movement forward until we drop our physical bodies and arrive at the home He prepared for us from the beginning, the Kingdom of Heaven. His life was experiencing every temptation we face (Heb.4:15).  The why and how was the final match on Calvary.  The Lord Jesus ‘rassled’ in Gethsemane, ‘rassled’ on the road to the Cross and then ‘rassled’ on the Cross for each of us.  His Seven Last Words had you and me in mind.  His death was our death, but His Resurrection is our Resurrection, a life process ending in death but purified in His Resurrection to eternal life.  The devil lost and lost eternally.  Jesus won and He won for us.  That winning was for each of us regardless of where we’ve been, what we’ve done and what we’re like now. 

       Jesus’ life was filled with a passion for doing His Father’s will and doing it for us.  So, you and I are in the process of maturing as we live by grace through faith loving God and others.  It’s a day to day dying to our self-devised survival attitudes as we embrace Spiritude (our ‘rasslin’ match) from one moment to the next that we may be risen with Him into eternity.   “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known (1Cor.13:12).”