Swimming in Faith

By Kyle Verage

Head in line, good shoulder rotation, butt tight, toes pointed, stiff kick—all parts of a good backstroke swim. It takes a lot of discipline, commitment, and straight up hard work to develop the technique necessary for a good backstroke, a good swimming stroke. It’s really hard to wake up, trudge half-asleep to an early morning workout still sore from the practice only ten hours earlier, and get motivated to swim hard. But that’s what it takes. That’s just what needs to be done. In the same way, it takes discipline and, indeed, training to go to church, pray, and live faithfully.

So if I wake up at 5:30 on an average morning to swim, getting up for church on Sunday should be cake, right? Unfortunately, my sinful flesh wants nothing more than to stay away from church. The devil wants to kill my faith. And the world wants nothing more than to offer every sinful excuse and temptation not to go. On Sunday morning, my bed feels unusually warm and comfortable. I sometimes find myself justifying why skipping church would be okay. And of course, it always seems that everything fun happens on Saturday night, making the already-difficult-to-wake-up-Sunday morning even more tricky. So, no, getting up for church on Sunday is not cake. It’s more like brussels sprouts or runny eggs. But I need to constantly remind myself or, rather, God’s Holy Spirit constantly reminds me, that I need to go to church. That’s just what needs to be done.

But why do we need to go to church? Because Jesus is there! We as Lutherans believe that at church, through God’s Divine Service, we see, hear, eat, and drink Jesus. We truly become one body with Christ and enjoy all the benefits of His divine Sonship, namely the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, salvation, and divine glory. Through Christ and His precious Sacraments, God no longer finds us guilty of judgment and hell. So no matter how cushy my pillow is or how joyful I am with friends on Saturday night, these things pale in comparison to the comfort and joy found in Christ through His Divine Service.

Just as daily swim practice prepares me for the next swim meet, so daily prayer and devotion prepare us for church on Sunday. Through the meditation and recitation of God’s Word, we come to know and appreciate Christ’s sacrifice more fully, making us long for His holy, sacrificial Body and Blood. By reading the Bible, reciting Luther’s Small Catechism, praying the psalms, and singing faithful hymns, we train our hearts and minds ever toward Christ, where they’re always supposed to be but aren’t because of our sinful nature.

Swimming has become particularly advantageous to my faith life as a means to discipline my sinful flesh. Like Paul in Romans 7:18, “I know that in me (that is in my flesh) nothing good dwells.” And Luther tells us in the Small Catechism: The Sacrament of Holy Baptism that “the Old Adam [who claims our sinful flesh] in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires.” Swimming daily (not in the baptismal sense of course), therefore, helps me to this end. Sometimes I would much rather eat a whole package of Oreos and play Guitar Hero for hours than go to swim practice. Oreos taste a lot better than chlorine and playing Guitar Hero feels a lot better than my burning lungs do after a difficult swim set. But it’s good to go to swim practice because it disciplines my flesh.

In the same way, daily prayer and devotion denies our sinful flesh and trains us to be ever mindful of God and our neighbor. Thus, church and prayer not only help us as sinful individuals before God, but they help us to live the holy life that God intended for us before our neighbor. Christ fulfilled God’s Law—His Ten Commandments—but His Ten Commandments still stand to guide our thoughts and actions and to teach us how to best serve our neighbor in love. If my swim mate strays from his side of the shared lane and we hit hands mid-stroke, which can really hurt, my first inclination is to smack him. But as a Christian, I am called to deny myself and bear suffering with love for the sake of my neighbor. Discipline in holy living, therefore, is a good thing.

While swimming is very different from my faith as a Christian, it has taught me discipline, which is good for my faith. No matter what teams, organizations, clubs, or groups we Christians find ourselves in, discipline in going to church, praying, learning, and living faithfully will always be good.

Kyle Verage is a senior Classics major at Valparaiso University in Indiana where he is also captain of the swim team. His hometown is Hubertus, Wisconsin, and he intends to go to seminary upon graduation. He can be reached at Kyle.Verage@valpo.edu.