In Him

          In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.  (Ephesians 1:7-8a)

           Many years ago, I read something that stuck with me better than the name of the book or its author. The story was that someone had given her husband a membership to a country club. That meant that he was in the club. He hadn’t paid a cent, but he could go to the club, use all of its facilities, and do everything that any dues-paying member of the club could do, and had to obey the same rules as everyone else in the club. She said that this is what it is like to be “in” Christ.

          In theory, another person could go into a country club and make use of the facilities. Looking like one is in doesn’t mean one is, and eventually, the fraud will be revealed. We watch this drama play out on TV all the time. Someone walks into a hospital or government facility. They procure the right clothes and an id badge (usually by knocking someone out or killing him and sneak out of a broom closet with access to everything. When I worked in loss prevention, I heard a story of a couple people who walked into a store, picked up a canoe, and, while the loss prevention person held the door open for them, walked out with it. They had looked legit. (I wasn’t the LP person, but I can imagine doing it.)

          Getting back to the club, in Jesus’ club, we have some unique benefits. We have redemption through His blood. He paid for our membership, even though it cost Him His life. He paid the dues. He made it possible for us to be in. If He gives us a membership, no one can take it away from us. If we don’t accept that membership, and sneak in, pretending to be a member, He knows. He allows it, in hope that we will at some point accept membership from Him, but eventually, the truth will be known. (This is one of my occasional fears – that I have hoodwinked myself into believing I’m a member. Most of the time, I know better.) But He has a roster of members.

          Because we are in, our failure to be in earlier can’t be used against us. Even our failure to live according to the club’s philosophy or rules doesn’t matter. It can’t be held against us. I know people who have made it clear that if Mr. Trump gets into Heaven, they will throw down their own membership cards and walk out. How can I possibly suggest that someone as disgusting as he is might get into heaven?

          Adam and Eve committed the first human reason. Noah got drunk. Tamar was a prostitute (once) and Rahab was one on a regular basis. David was a liar, an adulterer, and a murderer. Jael killed a man who fell asleep in her tent believing her to be an ally. Peter denied Christ three times. He and the rest of the disciples ran away when Jesus was arrested. Paul tried to destroy the Church, standing by in approval while others stoned men and women who had done nothing more than chosen to believe what Jesus said.

           Corrie TenBoom wrote of meeting one of the guards from the prison camp in which she’d been abused – one of the nastier guards, as I recall. He’d been granted a membership, and one of the hardest moments of her life was the moment in which she was challenged in public to love him. I fully expect to find pedophiles, rapists, murderers, traitors, cheats, con artists, drug addicts, and child or animal abusers in heaven. I’ve considered how I would respond to find Hitler, Stalin, or Mao there. Yes, I’ve even thought about finding the Clintons, the Obamas, and the Trumps there. I’ve even faced the question of discovering that one or more of the people who have bullied me (the one that comes to mind was a boss’s boss) might be my next door neighbors in heaven.

Here’s the thing. If you were to visit Hell, every single person you meet there will be guilty of treason and murder. Every…single…one. If you were to visit Heaven, you would only meet three persons who were not guilty of treason or murder: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Every other person you meet will be guilty of treason, twice, and of murder. It’s easy to talk “forgiveness” but harder to live it. But that’s the thing about being in Jesus – we will be called on to do just this – to forgive those we “can’t forgive” just as Jesus has forgiven us, and as others will be called on to forgive the unforgivable in us.

          That brings me to the “Oh wow!” portion of today’s passage, not that the rest of it shouldn’t provoke “Oh wow!” in us. But, riches…lavished on us…. This is what leads me to reject the idea of baptisms that are only sprinkling. I know there are time and circumstances, and  I would never tell someone that their sprinkle baptism was a lie or was not enough – but if someone were to ask me about baptism, I would encourage immersion unless there was a reason against it. (I know someone whose doctor said “no” because of a medical condition. Instead, they poured a pitcher full of fresh water over him – so no one else’s germs could be transmitted to him.) It’s all tied up in the word “lavished.” The term comes from a Latin word meaning “to wash.” Yes, that could mean a sponge bath, but when we think of the word lavish, we think of super-abundance, over-flowing, up-to-our-necks in, swimming laps in the tub,

          Probably the closest I can come to understanding this lavishness are the times when I looked out the kitchen window, and saw the moon reflected in the rear windshield of my car. In a moment of clarity, I realized that God had given me the moon. It’s possible that in that moment, no one else in the world may have been able to see it as I was seeing it. He may have given it to countless others through the ages, but in that moment, He gave it to me. That may explain why I like to take pictures of it.

          In the same way that He gave me the moon, He gives all his children redemption and forgiveness – and tomorrow I need to look at those two ideas again.