We’re just a few days into the new year. Not just a new year but a new decade. All across the country people have already messed up on their new year’s resolutions or simply given up. Someone wanted to lose weight, so they ate a kale salad with no dressing. They didn’t like it and the scale didn’t change much so they gave up. Another person wanted to get fit, so they ran three miles. They woke up this morning with sore legs, a headache, and they still weren’t fit. Someone else wanted to learn to crochet. They watched a video on YouTube. After 30 minutes their hands were cramping, they had already started over three times, and only one row was finished.
I remember learning the trumpet as a kid. It had to have been torture for my parents. The first thing I learned were scales. Then, I learned simple songs. By the end of high school, I was far from the best trumpet player in the band but I was playing first part on the hardest songs. Looking back, one of the things that stands out to me in that every day in band we would play scales for our warmup. You have to continually go back to the basics to train your fingers and lips to form the right notes. “Warming up” is not the “music” everyone else gets to enjoy but it brings the band together in unison so that when the music is ready to be performed for the world, the harmonies flow beautifully.
Each person in the symphony puts in long hours of practice alone so that they can better the people around them when they come together. They key word in all of these examples is practice. Have you ever thought of the Christian walk as one of practice? In 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Paul uses imagery taken from runners and boxers. We admire athletes for their abilities. Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian in the world, trained for 25-30 hours a week when he was competing at the highest levels. He was focused. His diet reflected his goals. He fueled his body for training. He didn’t just engage in “swimming practice.” His whole life was about practice. He engaged in eating practices, sleeping practices, breathing practices, etc. These practices can also be called “habits.” To become the most decorated Olympian in history, he stuck to his habits, transforming his body into an Olympic machine.
Paul says that the walk of Christian practice is one of greater importance than those who run for prizes that will not last. When we start talking about Christian practices people have a tendency to respond with “you cannot earn salvation” as if that’s what the focus is. We then shift to a better mindset of “you live this way in gratitude for what Christ did for me.” This is good but still falls short of the Christian calling.
The Christian life has a rhythm that moves from death to life. This world is broken in need of reconciliation. It is dead and needs life breathed into it. We embody this rhythm in the practice of baptism. We die when we go into the water and then rise up into the resurrection and new life. The Christian life is about transformation. The journey of transformation is the journey of salvation. You are saved through Grace in baptism into Christ. But that is not the end. Baptism clothes you into a new identity. The writers of the New Testament continually point to this transformation into the new identity you take on in your baptism. You’ll spend your entire life moving forward into this identity till it is fully embodied in the resurrection. The Christian walk is a walk. This requires movement. It requires direction. It requires intention. It requires practice.
Scriptures for reflection:
Deuteronomy 6:1-9
Mark 12:28-34
Romans 12:1-2
1 Corinthians 9:24-10:6
Galatians 5
2 Peter 1:3-11