The Bungee Cord. 6-28-21

Hello,

 

A couple of years ago, I bought 6 blueberry bushes for my wife for her birthday.  We gave them a home near the vegetable garden behind our house.  They must like it there, because they are hardy in their production of berries.  Of course, we are not the only ones who enjoy the berries.  The birds love them, too.  So, in order that there are any blueberries for us to consume, we have to put nets around them.  

 

In the past, the nets have been held up by some 8-foot branches that we picked up around our house.   Triangularly assembled, the nets looked like pup tents, letting the rain and sun in, but keeping the birds out. This year, however, we decided to upgrade our netting system.  I went out and got a bunch of ¾ inch plastic conduit and some rebar.  I pounded the rebar into the ground, cut the plastic conduits to be legs and crossbars, dropped the conduits over the rebar, connected the crossbars, and secured the nets on the structure….all without the help of a structural engineer!

 

As the blueberries have begun to ripen, I have gone into these net-boxes and picked the first crop of berries.  The birds have also noticed the blueberries ripening, and so they fly circles around the boxes, like a squadron of reconnaissance jets.  Although they locate their target, they find that the berries are safe inside the impenetrable nets.  Sometimes they land on the crossbars, I suspect with great frustration, being able to see those berries and not being able to reach them.  So close, but yet so far away!

 

Recently, I looked out of my bedroom widow, and I saw a bird flying around the blueberry bushes.  At first, I thought it was outside the netting, but upon closer examination, it was clear that it was inside.  It was flying between the two bushes that the net was covering.   Back and forth.  Back and forth.  However, it wasn’t consuming any of the berries.  It was trying to get out.  It was trapped.  I don’t know how it got in, but it was clear that it did not remember, and its efforts to escape were completely in vain.

 

I got on with my day, and completely forgot about the trapped bird.  When I came home in the afternoon, I remembered the bird and went to the blueberry bushes to see if I could rescue it.  It was gone.  I told my wife that I noticed that the bird was not in the nets any longer, and I said, “It must have figured how to get out.”

 

“No,” she said, “I had to let it out.”  I suspect that without my wife’s help, or mine, that bird would still be in there today.  She saved that bird.

 

What an incredible picture of what Jesus has done for us.  We, like that bird, can get drawn to the things that tantalize our eyes.  Not always things that are bad for us like blueberries, (a job, a physique, a family, popularity) but sometimes things that do want to consume our lives (fame, power, excitement, fear).  But drawn to them we can be.  They become the focus of our hearts.  Their lack of accessibility can become a nagging frustration, to the point that we “have” to have them.  And sometimes our desires are fulfilled and we find a way to get them…..only to find ourselves trapped inside an inescapable net.  But Jesus, when he sees us trapped, has compassion on us….compassion that turns his complete focus on us.  And unlike me, Jesus is not distracted, but comes to us with powerful grace….doesn’t just open a hole for us to try and find our escape, but he removes the net completely and says, “Fly. You are free.”  Once in flight, he secures the nets again, blessing us with the freedom to soar in God’s grace.  Not trapped by the things of this world, but caught in the joy of the one whose eye is on the sparrow.

 

“If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed!” (John 8:36)

 

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger