Memory is a funny thing. We fuzzily remember some of life’s most important events while having crystal-clear recall of random ones. One of my most vivid childhood memories is driving over to my father’s business and walking across the street to an empty lot where the circus trains were unloading in preparation for a small-town Jersey-shore circus. We watched the massive tents go up and the reluctant elephants being led down ramps. I remember peanuts being all over the ground and trampled earth as they did the same thing in reverse packing up the circus.

The Longest Running Circus Act

Even though traditional circuses are less en-vogue, the circus act of the world has only gotten larger and louder. Maybe we don’t pay a few dollars cash to watch an actual flame-thrower or sit half-scared, half-entertained as a man swallows a sword, but rest-assured that the circus act continues. Companies, products, and influencers set up tents in your mind and seek to hold your attention at the center ring. We may not watch actual trapeze artists, but we spend an inordinate amount of time watching people twist, contort, and costume themselves to get an applause, even if it is a virtual one.

All idolatry is like a two-sided clamorous courtship. The world, the flesh and the devil over promise as they vie for our allegiance. They put on a proverbial circus act, costuming created things and featuring them in the center ring. Once we are hooked we become the ones performing and clamoring for the attention and blessing of a not-god. 

The circus grows tiring. The tents start to tear. The acts lose their luster. We cannot sustain life on this commercialized crescendo. We were made for so much more.

This past Sunday I came into church particularly wearied from the noise of the circus and humbled by easily distracted I am by the world’s empty acts. One of our pastors spent a fair amount of time expounding on how Christ deals with both the guilt and shame we carry from our sin.. Christ not only bore our guilt in his body on the tree but also swallowed up our shame in his love (1 Peter 2: 24; Isaiah 53: 10–11). A shame-swallower beats a sword-swallower any day.

While the world outdoes itself with noise to be noticed, Christ quietly and patiently invites us to his better act

The Better Act

We need more than this circus act—
Sword-swallowers don’t deal with sin.
The world’s oversold promises,  
At best, prove threadbare and thin. 

Glitz and glamour gather crowds
As they crowd each cluttered soul;
Noisy networks mimic connection 
But they cannot make us whole. 

Consistently, yet without clamor,
A better act invites our attention:
Christ, the great shame swallower,
Whispers to us without pretension. 

Christ quietly climbed the cross
We with our sin-circus earned.
His open, scarred hands scatter
Love to them who him spurned. 

The circus loses its luster 
When held up to this love—
With Christ in the central ring,
Our longings are lifted above. 

In the words of C.S. Lewis, our Savior does not ravish, but woos. As the world loudly over-promises and under-delivers, the gospel loudly shoots us straight and then quietly delivers more than we could ever ask or imagine. Christ belongs at the center of our attention because he is the Center, holding all things together (Colossians 1:17). He is the Lamb who sits at the center of the throne (Revelation 7:9–10, NIV). The Savior is, was, and always will be better than the circus. We do well to adore him and align our lives to his Word.