The Bungee Cord  2-24-20

Hello,

     I read on the internet that the Texas Rangers stadium, in preparation for the season, flushed every one of their toilets at the very same time….all 2600 of them.  It must have been quite a gushing event.  The reason that they did so was to make certain that their plumbing system could handle such an cascade of sewage.  After all, it would be a bit embarrassing if the game had to be interrupted because there was a flow of unwanted debris flowing down the stands like a mountain stream from a less than capable waste system.

     I laughed when I read the story, but maybe it is not such a laughing matter at all.  Do you even take a look at your life and wonder if there is a waste system that can handle the toilet bowl of your life?  That can get rid of the filth…not get clogged up….and make you clean.  I know that the people around us can do a lot to flush the crud out of our lives.  They can tell us we are forgiven.  They can tell us that the hurt we have caused is water over the dam.  They can treat us with kindness and care.  

    But try as they might, people’s words and actions often don’t have to power to flush us clean.  The drainpipes of our lives have a way of leaving residue behind that can clog things up.   The force of other people’s forgiveness just doesn’t have the umph to clear things out.  When Jesus was asked by his disciples how many times must one forgive another for doing the same thing, Jesus’ answer was 7 times 7 (or 70), which was his way of saying you must forgive such a person every time.  When his disciples heard that, they said, “We need more flushing power to do that!”  

     The whole point of Jesus’ death on the cross was to do what you and I cannot do, and that is flush the filth of our lives with such force that not even one speck of crud is left in our lives.  On the cross, Jesus clogged up his life with all the crud the world could muster, and with the final flush, “It is finished!”,  all that putrid stuff went down the cross into the bottomless pit of death.  The Bible says that the death that Jesus died, he died once and for all.  Nothing, not even a small particle of gunk, escaped Jesus’ gathering it into himself, and nothing, not even a small particle of gunk, escaped from its flush into death.

     So, when you take a look at your life and wonder if there is any hope that the grunge in you might be extricated from your life…if you wonder whether the piling up of excrement will cause an unmovable clog….if you wonder if something you have done is so massive it cannot be displaced…..if you wonder if the grit and the grim will just always be there with its rancid reminder……Listen to Jesus cry from the cross, “It is finished!”, and you will hear what the maintenance people at the Texas Rangers Baseball stadium heard; a gushing noise so powerful to handle even the worst of toilet capacities. 

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger