Grace in Mid-Air
On Saturday, January 17, under clear alpine skies in Switzerland, a slopestyle run at the Laax Open unfolded exactly as planned -- until it didn’t.
Twenty-one-year-old Austrian freeskier Matej Svancer sped toward a ramp during his second run at the Laax Open, part of the Freeski World Cup. As Svancer launched into the air, his right ski detached mid-flight. By any ordinary measure, the run was over before it began.
But momentum had already taken hold. And Svancer knew his next move could be a life-or-death decision.
With rotation underway, Svancer made a split-second decision. He stayed with the motion, completing a full 1080 -- three complete rotations -- before landing cleanly, facing forward, on a single ski. The crowd erupted. Judges conferred. And, against every expectation, the run stood. Svancer finished the event in second place, just behind Norway’s Birk Ruud.
The video (click here) spread quickly for good reason. The moment captures more than athletic daring. When something essential is lost mid-air -- whether a ski or something else in life -- what happens next is not about perfection, but posture. Will we panic, freeze, or trust the movement already underway?
Paul spends the early chapters of his letter to the Romans unsettling any illusion of control or moral balance. By Romans 3, the ground has shifted beneath every reader: No one sticks the landing by flawless form. No one finishes the run on technical merit alone. Something is missing for all of us -- and pretending otherwise will only lead to collapse.
And in the moment when the ski unexpectedly breaks free, grace enters in.
Grace does not restore the missing ski mid-air or rewind the jump. Grace meets the person already spinning and says, Keep going. Stay with the movement. Trust the landing you cannot yet see.
Paul names the truth without flinching: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Yet he refuses to stop there. God’s righteousness, Paul insists, is revealed not through human steadiness but through divine faithfulness. The run continues -- not because humanity regains balance, but because God provides it.
Svancer’s landing works as a living parable: The skier does not abandon the jump when something goes wrong. He leans into what remains, adjusts his posture, and commits fully to the descent. Grace works the same way: Grace does not deny what has been lost. Grace teaches how to land anyway.
As Romans keeps unfolding in the weeks ahead, the invitation remains steady: Stop striving for a perfect run. Stop pretending both skis are intact. Trust the One who meets humanity mid-air and carries us through the landing.