Will It Really Hold Me Up?

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

June 20, 2010

Will It Really Hold Me Up?

Psalm 42:1-8

The show opens with the driving beat of

Aerosmith’s song “Livin’ on the Edge”.

Bass, drums, chain-saw guitar,

Steven Tyler and the band screaming the refrain,
“Livin’ on the Edge,

Livin’ on the Edge!”

As the music beats its way into your head,

enormous trucks roar across the screen,

the term “tractor-trailer” hardly doing them justice:

80,000 pound rigs, 18 wheels,

just as many forward gears.

But these trucks aren’t trying to make their way

through the traffic jams that are part of

everyday life here in northern Virginia.

No, these trucks are thousands of miles from here,

way up in Canada’s Northwest Territories,

the Yukon,
and Alaska.

In those places it isn’t the traffic congestion that grinds down

both truck and driver,

it is the brutal winter weather,

with temperatures in January, February and March
often touching 30, even 40 below zero.

Just to get through a winter’s day there

is to live on the edge.

But the cold weather isn’t the focus of the show;

there are colder places.

No, the title of the show tells us

why driving here is living on the edge:
The show is called, “Ice Road Truckers”.

For three months each winter,

a small group of truckers eager to test themselves

against some of the most difficult driving conditions

outside the Beltway

drive their trucks on ice roads.

Not icy roads, no, these are road made of ice.

Fly over the Canadian northwest in the summer
and you’ll see a paradise of thousands of lakes, rivers and streams.

Men, women, and children out on many of them,

swimming, fishing, boating.

But come the winter, and every lake, every river
freezes solid, the ice thick enough to support 

the massive weight of huge tractor trailers.

There are diamond and gold mines,

along with oil and natural gas wells

way up in the Canadian north,

and some bright engineers realized that

while they could never hope to build paved roads

through the rough countryside,

Mother Nature provided them with ready-made roads

over the lakes and rivers for a few months each winter.

And so a new vocation was born:

ice road truckers.

To be an ice-road trucker means you have to be a man of courage.

(And in the first two seasons, all the drivers were men)

There is always the danger that the ice will give way at any moment

and you and your truck will plunge into the frigid waters.

And if that were to happen, it is real simple:

you would not survive.

And, since this is television,

we are reminded of that danger every few minutes,
with a computer-animation

that shows a truck breaking through the ice

and dropping like a rock to the bottom of the lake.

In the first two seasons of the show,

set in the Canadian Northwest

we followed every truck down the same road:

out of the shipping yard,

through the small city of Yellowknife,
then just outside of town, down a gravel road,

to the sign that said, “Ice Road”,

with an arrow pointing to the left.

The driver would turn the wheel gently to the left

and ease first the tractor, then the trailer onto the ice.

Microphones picked up every groan from the ice

as 40-, 50-, 60,000 pounds or more

spread across 18 tires and five axles

slid across the ice,

the specially-designed tires

trying to grab hold of the slick surface.

The show portrays the drivers as strong, burly,

brave, willing to risk their lives

for the hazard pay that comes with the job.

Dozens of small crosses line the roadway along its 200-mile length,

reminders of how many lives the ice roads have claimed,

reminding the truckers that death rides with them every mile.

The only drivers who could hope to master the ice roads

are those who are men of faith.

I am not speaking of faith in God, faith in Christ,

although one driver does speak regularly and comfortably

of his religious faith.

No, these men have faith in the ice:

that the ice will hold them up.

They have faith enough in the strength of the ice

to climb into the cab day in and day out,

power up, shift into gear, and go.

They may not think of themselves as men of faith,

but that’s what they are.

They’ve put their belief in something they don’t understand:

water turning to ice in cold temperatures,

temperatures so cold it freezes the water

a foot thick, two feet, three feet, more.

So thick it will support the weight of their trucks.

They’ve put their faith in men they’ve never met,

the men who go out before the ice road season begins,

out to measure the ice, test it,

assure that it is safe.

They put their faith in other men who clear the snow from the ice,

mark the boundaries,

check the weather,

warn of hazards.

Ice road truckers:

rugged men piloting big rigs through dangerous conditions;

men of faith.

They probably wouldn’t use the word “faith”, though.

They’d probably prefer words like “tough”, “strong”,

“brave”, “fearless”, “bold”…

Faith is not a word men readily embrace.

Somehow the word seems to suggest characteristics that

men think they should avoid:

uncertainty,

trusting in others,

Softness,

“warm and fuzzy” thinking.

A real man doesn’t act on faith;

he acts with equal parts certainty, conviction, and courage.

A real man is as solid as an I-beam.

And yet we have only to open the pages of the Bible

and we can find example after example

of men as tough as any ice-road truckers

who lived and walked in faith.

Strong men,

men who we could easily see

behind the wheel of a custom Kenworth.

The past few weeks our Wednesday Bible Study group

has been looking at the life of Peter,

looking at him as a person, as a man.

Read through the gospels and Peter often comes across

as dim, dull,

uncertain, stumbling,

hardly a mix of certainty, conviction and courage;

hardly a tower of strength or leadership        
as he walked with Jesus.

And yet, think about the type of man Peter was;

a fisherman,

built strong from his years hauling heavy nets

filled with fish into his boat,

pulling on oars to get to where he thought the fish were,

shoveling salt over the racks of fish

as they dried in the hot sun on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

Hands calloused, skin tough and dry,

lips chapped from the sun, sweat, and salt;

eyes firm, strong,

able to see under the sun’s glare on the water’s surface,

to where the fish were to throw his net.

hitting his mark time after time.

If any of the 12 disciples was physical, burly,

powerful, Peter was it.

But Peter learned that it was his inner strength

that was more important than his outer strength,

his physical strength.

He learned to walk by faith as he walked with Jesus.

He took an even more radical step,

becoming a truly spiritual man,

claiming fully the power of God’s Holy Spirit,

letting the Spirit fill him to lead him,

strengthen him, guide him.

He no longer hauled in nets loaded with fish
no longer pulled at oars,

no longer shoveled salt in the hot sun,

but Peter was far stronger after that first Pentecost

than he ever had been as a man making his living from the sea.

Peter’s life as a disciple was not easy.

He was accosted, mocked, jeered,

attacked for his faith, arrested,

and he would eventually die for this faith,

crucified, nailed to a cross in Rome,

according to legend.

Still, where once he had sunk into the waters

like a great truck breaking through the ice,

because of his weak faith,

by the end of his days,

Peter could have walked across surface of the Sea of Galilee

from one side to the other

with his ankles dry as the desert.

Nicholas Wolterstorff writes of faith as,
“a footbridge that you don’t know will hold you up over the chasm

until you’re forced to walk out onto it.”
(Lament for a Son, 76)

Faith helps us handle life’s difficulties,

no matter how bad.

Last week we talked about how life is filled with questions,

and mysteries that elude our best efforts to find answers to;

As much as we wish it were,
life is not filled with certainty.

But if we walk in faith,

if we open ourselves to the power of God’s Holy Spirit,

we can grow in confidence and strength each day,

no matter what life might throw at us.

The prophet Isaiah reminds us of the promise:
“Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,

they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary,

they shall walk and not faint.”

(Isaiah 40:31)

The Psalmist gives voice to his faith,

telling all who would listen of his need for faith,

his need for God:

“as a deer longs for flowing streams,

so my soul longs for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God,

for the living God.”

The Psalmist tells of how he struggled

when God seemed absent in his life.

He was mocked and scorned by those around him.

But he drew strength from his faith.

He speaks with such conviction,

he knows that God is always there

to lead him, guide him,
show him the way.

It is a strong man, not a weak one,

who can say, as the Psalmist does,

“For you are the God in whom I take refuge”

This is a man who is grounded,

confident;

This is a strong man who knows that God will bear him up,

a man who knows that his life is built on faith.

We need more men who are not afraid to speak of their faith,

who are not afraid to think of themselves as spiritual,

who confidently proclaim their thirst for the Lord.

Faithful men, Godly men, spiritual men,

rather than men we have too many of:

celebrities,

athletes as entertainers,

businessmen:

selfish, shifty,

sneaky, spinning,

greedy, grasping,

men who march across our television screens

puffing themselves up,

grabbing all they can for themselves,

while they hide behind press releases

and image consultants, and lawyers.

We need more men of faith who aren’t afraid

to live as Christ calls us to:

lives of selflessness,

of service, of goodness,

of outreach,

lives of faith,

built on inner strength in the Spirit.

We are all living on the edge:

the edge between life society says we ought to live,

that we think we are entitled to live,

and the real life that Christ calls us to,

a life of faith,

a deeply spiritual life.

This is a life where we are just as quick,

just as willing as the Psalmist to say,

My soul longs for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God,

for the living God.

For you are my strength, my refuge.

This is a life that gives us the confidence to walk any road

and have faith that even if the ground beneath

trembles and cracks,

we will be held up,

for no longer are we living on the edge.

AMEN