What believing really is all about
Charles Blondin was a "funambulist."
No, he wasn't someone getting his kicks out of being ambulatory, although I suspect he did enjoy being able to move around.
"Funambulist" is a fancy word for tightrope walker, and in the mid-19th century Blondin was one of the best.
A small man, at 5'5" and 140 pounds, he was born into this world as Jean François Gravelet, but he became legend under his show name Charles Blondin.
The French daredevil made his way into human lore and the history books by crossing the Niagara Falls gorge not just once but many times on a hemp rope cable two inches in diameter and almost a quarter-mile long, stretched nearly 200 feet above the roiling waters of the gorge below the Falls.
His first crossing was on June 30, 1859. In future crossings he sat on a chair in the middle of the cable, brought along a small stove and cooked and ate an omelet partway through his journey, pushed a wheelbarrow across, and several times carried his manager, Harry Colcord, on his back. Colcord was the same weight as Blondin.
Blondin drew tens of thousands of people to his performances. Former President Millard Fillmore, who lived in Buffalo, was one of the spectators, as was the British Prince of Wales.
The Rev. Michael Stoner, pastor of Batavia United Methodist Church, told this story in a sermon recently. A popular version of the story has Blondin crossing the gorge with his wheelbarrow and then asking the assembled crowd on the other side if they believed he could cross back over with a person in the wheelbarrow.
According to the story, the crowd shouted its assent. Then Blondin asked for a volunteer. The people became quickly silent; not one hand was raised. Blondin had thousands of admirers, but no one was willing to place their life in his hands.
The story of Blondin's spectacular stunts is easily authenticated on the Internet, but I haven't been able to verify that he actually made the offer to the crowd or the crowd's reaction. That's not surprising.
When Blondin carried his manager across it was with the confidence that Colcord would explicitly obey the performer's balancing instructions along the way. The tightrope artist couldn't count on a stranger in the crowd doing that without panicking. Blondin probably wouldn't have carried out his offer had there been someone willing to accept it.
But the point that Pastor Stoner was making is valid even if those details are not easily verifiable. If it didn't actually happen, we all know that it easily could have. "Believing" something can be done isn't difficult; it's another matter entirely to commit one's life to that conviction.
In this season of Lent, Pastor Stoner was asking his listeners if they are simply admirers of Jesus or if they are willing to be followers. A lot of people admire the man from Galilee; the group willing to follow is much smaller.
That's food for thought for anyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus.