CLIMBING EVEREST

The week before I went into the hospital for the kidney surgery I finished a book entitled, “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer.  It tells the story of the author, an avid mountain climber, who was approached by a popular climber’s magazine to go on an expedition to the base camp at Mt. Everest in order to gather information for an article on the commercialization of the climbing of that mountain.  

 

The offer rekindled Krakauer’s dream to climb Everest himself and so he agreed to do the article on the condition that the magazine pick up the tab for the climb, not just to base camp, but to the top of Everest, and they agreed.  And so, in May of 1996, he and his team, plus several other climbing teams set off to climb Mt. Everest.  Their trek would have tragic results when a fierce, unexpected storm strikes just below the pinnacle, wiping out many of the climbers in his party as they tried to make their way back down to camp.

Not being an avid climber, jogger, hiker, golfer, __?____ (fill in the blank with anything physically demanding), reading or hearing stories like that, the immediate question that forms in my mind is, “Why?”.  Why would anyone, especially someone with a wife or husband or children, take that kind of risk to do something that can, and too often does, end in tragedy?

Everest climbers seem to be a breed of people passionate about mountain climbing – the physical challenge of it, the technicality of the climb, the competitiveness of doing something other climbers have done, as well as the challenge of climbing a mountain you’ve never climbed, persevering over exhaustion, high altitude, and weather.  Many of them had already climbed other extraordinarily high peaks and Everest was just the last of the greats for them.  Even after the tragedy of that May 1996 many of the survivors, despite having lost friends that year, went on to climb other peaks.  They know the dangers but they can’t resist the challenging of doing it anyway.

I don’t understand the kind of passion that causes people to want to climb physical mountains or push to accomplish some other physical goal, but I do understand passion – the kind that prompts one to do the unexpected, the challenging, the adventurous, the extreme.  I do understand the passion that motivates someone to step outside their comfort zone, to say yes when no seems like a much better idea, to see challenge as opportunity, to keep their eye on the goal even if there is pain along the way.  

I’ve seen this passion in missionaries, serving long years in remote places, away from family and friends, with few of the creature comforts most of us take for granted, in order to bring hope and life to people who have never heard about Jesus.

I’ve seen it in pastors laboring in inner city parishes, or in remote regions of our country and our world, who keep on keeping on, often without ever seeing results in the lives of those to whom they minister. 

I’ve seen it in the Bahamas among those who faithfully minister at a camp for those with HIV/AIDS, providing clean water, meals and medicine to those who could never hope to give back and who are too sick and disabled to do so, even if they could.

One of the things I noticed about the climbers of Everest is the motivation for their passion – sometimes it was fame, sometimes money, sometimes it was some personal goal they wanted to reach, sometimes it was just because Everest was THERE, and why not climb it  – for these things they risked their lives, their health and well-being, and their future earning possibilities and the well being of their families – for what to me just seems like bragging rights. 

Isn’t it amazing then when Jesus says, “He who would be great among you must be the servant of all”?  Not - at the top of his class, the most intelligent, well educated, most degreed, most influential, most powerful, most physically fit? No, in the economy of Jesus the greatest is the servant.

So what do you think of when you think of a servant?  I think “Downton Abbey”.  I think, setting aside what you might want to do to care for others.  I think, living “downstairs” in the humblier quarters.  I think, working all hours of the day and night at the beck and call of your master.  I think, living to make your master look good, not you.  I think, “Yes Sir, whatever you wish Sir”. 

 That’s the topsy turvy nature of the kingdom of Jesus.  His is the last shall be first, the greatest is the servant, sort of kingdom.

Those who belong to Jesus know about passion – not for fulfilling some personal best, or gaining notoriety. 

Missionaries will give their lives for the passion to serve their Master and the people He loves to whom He sent them.  They will serve for no reward but the pleasure of the Lord.

Pastors will labor in spiritual vineyards their whole lives, many seeing only a glimpse of the harvest.  But they don’t work for the harvest, they serve at the pleasure of the Harvester.

The Kingdom of Jesus is a topsy turvy one when compared to what is valued in this earthly one.  But, as a bumper sticker I read once said: “the rewards are out of this world”. 

The Apostle Paul describes the nature of these passionate servants of God’s kingdom like this in I Corinthians 1:26-30:

“Brothers, think of what you were when you were called.  Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.  But God chose the foolish things of the world (the servants) to shame the strong.  He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him.  It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God – that is our righteousness, holiness and redemption.  Therefore as it is written: ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”

The servants in the Kingdom of Jesus will be passionate about something.  They will be passionate about Jesus – about His glory, His work, His kingdom, His reputation.  If a servant is going to lose his life for anything, let it be about Jesus because in His kingdom, to lose one’s life for His sake is to gain eternal life. 

When I was being interviewed by the psychiatrist at NY Presbyterian Hospital in preparation for qualifying as a kidney donor, she wanted to know if I saw the kidney donation as some kind of “personal best”, the culmination of my walk of faith.  I thought that was really funny.

The “personal best” of the servant of Jesus is magnifying Jesus, making the Master look good, while the servant blends into the background.  If that's accomplished by this or anything else, then yes, it's a personal best!