I didn’t grow up with recycling. It was a new “thing” as I was entering high school and recycling was as suspect in my little corner of the deep South as the entire idea of “ecology” (which was supposed to be an attempt by the political left to divert the nation to earth worship). We’ve come a long way. I’ve come a long way. I even volunteer at a local thrift store where the ladies running the place are trying mightily to help me understand the mantra of reduce, reuse, repurpose, recycle!
I think twice about a lot of things and wonder if there is a creative way to reuse something without throwing it away. Recycling, however, is still not my choice for sermons or these article in the News- Herald. To my knowledge, I’ve never reused an old sermon since I believe each audience, even the same people week after week, are not really the same people, week after week. They’ve changed. I’ve changed. We need fresh, not old.
I am, however, on this beautiful warm day three-quarters of the way through the month of July in the year 2018 going to reuse an article I wrote for the Good News, when I was once privileged to write weekly for this paper. The article is from February 2008. It was cold then. Snowy then. And it provided an insight worth repeating here in mid-summer 10 years later. Here’s the column:
We pulled carefully into the driveway. Snow was blowing nearly horizontally in front of us, and the windshield had still not defrosted, our breath turning to ice on the inside of the window it was so cold outside. We knew the rain from the previous day would make the driveway slippery, but this was the first time since we’ve lived in the house we’ve had to drive in on a solid sheet of ice.
Downhill.
The Explorer took the turn into the driveway well and eased over the crest toward the open garage and the space just a little wider than the truck between the car and the wheelchair ramp. I tapped lightly on the brake to prevent the truck from picking up too much speed. Bad move. The headlights wandered toward the back of the car… the side of the garage… . The edge of the rock retaining wall.
I released the brake and turned into the slide, praying the wheels would find some traction somewhere on the glacier underneath us. A snowdrift across the driveway loomed closer as the slide continued. My thoughts were focused on a single question: what were we going to hit and how costly would be the damage?
The snowdrift was not much, maybe only an inch or two in the middle, but it was enough. The tires found their hold, and the Explorer rolled gently onto the apron and into the garage. Linda exhaled and unclenched her fists. Scared we were, but safe, thanks to the providence of a single snowdrift.
A single snowdrift in the right place at the right time placed entirely without my input but utterly for my benefit. That’s grace. That’s God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. Each and every one of us lives our lives on the slippery slope of sin drifting, sliding toward a most unpleasant collision with personal spiritual culpability, but God puts His only Son in the way of our inevitable destruction.
This is the Good News, that God intervenes on our behalf without our input but utterly for our benefit. God judges sin. He will judge our sins in us, or he will judge them in Christ. One way or the other he will respond with perfect judgment. Either we will get what we deserve, or he will account the death of his only Son on the cross as our substitute and give to his Son what we deserve, giving to us what his Son deserves, namely, eternal life.
How may we avoid this deadly collision and roll safely into heaven? By believing in Jesus Christ and trusting him for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus is the well-placed snowdrift. Faith is the friction that corrects our course.
That’s the Good News.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. Pastor Dale McIntire has served as pastor of the Cornerstone Community Church in Grand Marais since April of 1995.
Leave a Reply