Please Don't Miss Out--May 18, 2021

Please Don't Miss Out--May 18, 2021

"Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest is still open, let us take care that none of you should seem to have failed to reach it.  For indeed the good news came to us just as to them; but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened." [Hebrews 4:1-2]

I should probably admit here that almost any time I hear an announcer's voice saying, "Act now--supplies are limited!" I stop listening.  Life experience has brought out the cynic in me that way.  When I hear "Act now--supplies are limited!" I know I am being sold something, and all too often, the ones pleading with me to buy aren't interested so much in giving me something good as they are in making a buck.  And if all they're after is my money, I can take my sweet ol' time to decide if and when I'll give it to them, as well as whether I really want or need what they're hawking.

But there's something different about the urgency of this message from the writer of Hebrews.  True enough, it still has the feel of "Act now!  This is your chance!" but it doesn't have the slightly slimy residue of self-interest as the motivation here.  The writer of Hebrews doesn't get any kickback or finder's fee or sales commission from getting us to trust in the God of whom he is speaking.  And here's the real wonder: neither does God.

This is neither the writer of Hebrews, nor God's, sales pitch to get us to do something or buy something for their sake.  It is about an offer of a gift too good to be missed out on, an opportunity too blessed to be wasted, and too precious to be ignored.  That's how grace works.  God offers us a gift, and then rather than leaving it up to us to be smart enough or fast enough to sniff out a good deal, God bends over backwards and shouts to get our attention so that we'll recognize what a windfall has been placed in our hands.  The offer is free.  The gift is free.  The persistent pleading, "Here's a free gift--it's yours for the having.  Trust me on this." is God's way of getting through to us.

It's honestly got to be frustrating--if not outright heartbreaking--from God's vantage point here. Just like God had offered freedom from enslavement, a promised future, and sustenance along the way for the wandering Israelites, only to have them repeatedly say, "Nah, I don't need your help, and I don't trust you to take care of me," God keeps offering us both freedom and life in Christ.  And so often, our response is a shrug of, "I don't think I really want God's help," or "I'll do it MY WAY," or "This sounds too good to be true, so I won't believe," or "It's not worth it if it's free--if I have to DO something to earn it, then maybe..." Sometimes I think we don't give much consideration to the way God chooses to be vulnerable--rejectable, even--as much as God is powerful and mighty.  That's going to change our picture of who and what God really is like.

Not to put too fine a point on it here, but all of this makes me think of the way we are handling COVID vaccinations these days.  We live--amazingly!--in a time and a place in which a solidly researched, safe, and effective vaccine has been developed, tested, and produced, and now has been made available so easily that you can just walk up without even having made an appointment, with no cost to individuals, so that each of us and our loved ones (as well as strangers and neighbors) will be protected from the risk of a virus that's killed half a million people in a year in our country alone and is devastating other countries, too.  And yet... sometimes that free gift is met with a shrug of, "Nah, I don't want the help," or "I don't think I need this," or "Well, I probably wouldn't get very sick if I got it," rather than jumping at the chance to show love to neighbors by getting vaccinated.  It's heartbreaking to have a good thing being offered as a free gift to you, and to just walk away without any awareness of the lengths others have gone to in order to try to give you this good thing.

If you know that feeling--if you know what it's like to care about someone enough to have told them, "Please, go get vaccinated, because I care about you and the people you love, and great labor has been expended to make this possible for you as a free gift," only to have them shrug it off with arrogant indifference, then maybe we can get why the writer of Hebrews is so passionate about holding out the offer of God's grace to us,  too.  It's not a product for sale that God needs to make a profit on.  It's a gift that is free to us but costly for God that can mean life and freedom and peace for us.

So today, let's not miss out on ANY of the good things others have labored and gone to great trouble to make possible for us, so that we can be more fully alive.  This is a moment, right now, to trust what God gives, not just for today, but for a lifetime.  This is a moment to put away all the things that keep us from trusting the God who went to a cross for us.  This is a moment to find peace in the assurance that we are held by a love that will not give up on us, but rather keeps on bending over backwards and shouting to say, "Here is something good.  I give it to you for free.  Receive it and live."

And yeah, if you haven't yet and don't have a medical reason why you can't, go get vaccinated.  God loves you too much to see you waste a gift of life like that, too.

Lord God, give us the faith enough to receive the good gifts you have placed in our lives by grace,