The Bungee Cord  6-21-21

Hello,

 

The Pirates (Pittsburgh’s baseball team) are not doing very well this year.  So, when something good happens, there is a lot of rejoicing. This weekend, they won a game!  In addition to the winning the game, our center fielder hit a home run that cleared the stadium wall and bounced into the river which runs alongside the stadium.  Such home runs happen only every once in a while, so when they come it is pretty exciting.

 

So exciting it was that a man who was walking along the edge of the river jumped off of the platform into the river to retrieve the ball.  Apparently, this man’s dive was caught on TV, and so this morning (Monday) as I was driving into work, listening to the sports talk station, the radio guys started talking about this man’s splashing retrieval of the ball.

 

“No way would I ever do that!” said one of the announcers.  “Not for a home run hit by the center fielder, in the middle of June, by a team that is playing so badly.”

 

“Me either,” said the other announcer.  “There’s no way that I am jumping in that river.  Well, if I did see some law abiding person slip and fall in the river and there wasn’t anyone else around.  I might jump it.  But if some drunk stumbled into the river, no way I am jumping in.  No way for some drunk!”

 

I don’t know what you would do for a “worthless” baseball or person, but I do know what God would do, and I know it because I saw God do it.  I saw God jump into slimy and polluted water, to retrieve what the world considered worthless, and was floating in the water because of stumbling through life drunk with sin.   When God jumped into this world in Jesus, it wasn’t captured on TV, but just as certainly captured in the words of Scripture.

 

“For God so loved the world, that he sent his only begotten Son….” (John 3:16)  The truth is that people do seemingly crazy, and maybe even stupid things when it comes to someone they love.  And that is what led to God’s river jump.  One of the things that some find scandalous about  the Christian faith is that God would jump into this river for those who the world views as worthless, but to me that is the greatest news of all that the Christian faith proclaims….because when I am floating in this river, I know that Jesus, like that “crazy” Pirate fan, would jump in just to have me…..and have you, too.  

 

I don’t know what that Pirate fan did with that “worthless” baseball, but I do know what God has in store for the “worthless” ones that Jesus jumped into retrieve.  God plans to take care of you and me like we are the finest pearl in the ocean.  God plans on having you and me right next to him for eternity.  You and I will be the first thing God sees when every morning of eternity and the last thing he sees every eternity’s evening.  You and I are the apple of God’s eye, and God’s plan is to hold us in his divine love forever.

 

Thank you, God, for jumping in the river for us….as foolish as the world might think that jump may have been!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger