By David Ryser
Even
a blind squirrel finds an acorn sometimes.
(Proverb)
I do a lot of driving, both on my
job and in my personal life. Driving is
not exciting to me…and I suppose it’s best that way. “Driving” and “excitement” are two words that
should probably never appear in the same sentence. In my experience, excitement while driving is
almost always a bad thing. But driving
can be boring, which poses its own risks.
So I look for ways to keep myself mentally engaged while driving.
I particularly enjoy reading church
building marquees.
There are lots of opportunities to
read church building marquees. Church
buildings are everywhere… like pubs (and for the same reasons). Reading the marquees, I often muse about the folks
who gather in these buildings…and why they do.
What sorts of people attend the services? Do they love Jesus? Do they even know Him? Does Jesus attend their church meetings? Would I be welcomed in their services…and for
how long?
I’ve come to suspect that the
message on a church building marquee says a lot about the people who meet
inside.
Many messages I read on church
building marquees are…to put it politely…religious tripe. Many others are merely advertising of some kind. I suspect that the latter is less harmful
than the former. Few people are harmed
by advertising. Far more are poisoned by
drinking the religious bilge served in the average church service.
But I digress.
My current favorite example of a church
building marquee message that encourages me to stay out of the building at all
costs is one I saw in a small rural town.
The sign reads: IF YOU DON’T HAVE
THE BREAD OF LIFE, YOU’RE TOAST. I must
admit that my first reaction was to laugh.
A part of me found the sign to be quite funny…if somewhat
counter-productive…and it amused me.
After all, if you’re going to
engage in religious buffoonery, at least have the decency to be entertaining.
But what kind of message does this
send to people? Much of what is
communicated in Christian evangelism…by whatever media…seems to portray God as saying,
“Love Me…or else.” Or else what? Or else I’ll curse you? Cause you to be sick? Harm you, your family, and your
children? Burn you forever in the fires
of hell?
Who can resist such an
invitation? Doesn’t this just make you
want to run into your heavenly Daddy’s arms?
Jesus never…ever…not even
once…issued such an invitation to people.
He did encourage them to meet and relate intimately with the Father. A Father who desperately loved them. A Father who wanted very much to fellowship
with them. A Father who would not reject
them, but who would receive them with gladness into His embrace.
It’s been my experience that it’s
not necessary to threaten a person in order to persuade them to love someone
who loves them this much.
So I don’t find much truth on
church building marquees. And when I do,
I often suspect that it’s an accident.
For example, I was driving past a church building recently, and the
message on the marquee read: NEED A NEW
LIFE? GOD ACCEPTS TRADE-INS. I found the message clever, and was about to
pass it out of my thinking.
And then the truth of the message
exploded in my spirit.
You see, too many Christians…myself
included…tend to view our faith as a spiritual automobile repair. Our car (life) is broken, so we take it into
the mechanic (Jesus) who repairs (“saves”) it and returns it to us with an
admonishment to drive more carefully (live the “Christian life”) and maintain
it more diligently (develop robust spiritual disciplines) in the future. This sounds good, but is found nowhere in the
Bible.
The Christian life is less like a
car repair, and more like a trade-in for a new car.
With a trade-in, a person takes
his/her old car (old life) to the dealer (Jesus) and exchanges it for a new car
(new life). Ownership of the old car is
relinquished to the dealer, and the previous owner forfeits all future rights
to it. Signs away the title. Turns in the key. Walks away from the old car and begins to
drive the new car, never to own or drive the old car ever again.
This is Paul’s view of the
Christian life.
Especially in his letters to the
Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, Paul presents the Christian faith as an
exchange of life. We die and receive
Christ’s life. We trade in our old man
for the new man. We no longer live out
of the old life; but rather, we walk in the newness of Christ’s life. And as the seed of Christ’s life which has been
planted in us takes root and grows, it displaces our old life and we
progressively come out of the spiritual darkness into God’s light. We live “in Christ” (a term found dozens of
times in the Epistles), and Christ lives in us.
God not only accepts trade-ins, He
welcomes them.
So now I’m left wondering if the
people who worship and fellowship inside of this church building are living
in…or are even aware of…the truth expressed on their building’s marquee. It’s one thing for a blind squirrel to
stumble across an acorn, but this good fortune does the squirrel no good unless
it recognizes the acorn as an acorn.
Otherwise, the squirrel will mistake the acorn for a rock…or some other
inedible object…and kick it aside and resume the search for food, never
realizing how close it came to enjoying the feast that it was seeking.
Religion is a lot like that
squirrel.
I probably will never go into that
church building. I don’t even remember
where it is. But as I went on my way,
the message on the marquee continued to ring in my spirit.
NEED A NEW LIFE? GOD ACCEPTS TRADE-INS.
Responses to this article are
welcomed. You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com
