Hebrews 11:1 — Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Do you like circuses? I can’t remember the last time I saw one, but I know that I was less impressed by the animals and more impressed by the amazing feats of daring performed by the trapeze artists. 
In my high school years I attended what was considered  a “good” school for the area I lived in. We had two gymnasiums. The “New” gymnasium was not more than twenty years old. The “Old” gymnasium dated from before the second world war! In that dilapidated hall there were hung two pairs of trapezes, and we were encouraged to use them, and fly from one to another … launching ourselves into the air and hoping to connect at the other end. Of course we were only a few feet of the ground, and had rubber mats to land on if we missed our grab. Despite that it took all my nerve to make my hands let go of the fly bar and grab for the other.   
I was musing on faith today, and it came to me that the action of faith is something like flying from one trapeze to another. When we take that leap of faith, we let go of whatever we’ve been depending on and trust that God will catch us. We know He’s going to be there for us, even when we can’t see Him. In fact it’s not so much the way it was for me in the Old Gym as it is for those amazing circus artists. The trapezes are high of the ground, but when I let go I’m not aiming at a bar, but at a catcher who will reach out for me and grab me. I can rely on it.
It seems to me, too, that Jesus was the ultimate “daring young man on the flying trapeze”. He was obedient even to death on the cross. He launched Himself into eternity. On that cross He died, hanging, waiting for His Father to catch Him. There was a dreadful, agonizing, heart-stopping moment when it seemed He lost His essential certainty: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (There is a view that says the words were not words of despair, but words intended to make us better understand the need for Jesus’s sufferings, but I think that’s a stretch).
Jesus launched himself into death … and His Father caught Him and took Him up. We must do likewise, being buried in the likeness of His death and raised in the newness of life. Have you let go of the fly bar?