Second Chances

There is a scene from the movie City Slickers, where one of the characters, Phil, is having a bit of a meltdown.  He's lost his wife, his job, his family- really, his manhood.  The other characters try to buoy his spirits, but nothing is working.  Finally, Mitch, Phil's friend since childhood, reminds him of a phrase they used often while playing baseball and a ball got hit to some place they couldn't retrieve it from.  "Do over."  Basically, that one didn't count, so do it again.  Forget it, and move on.

I use the terminology of chances- we all get a first chance, and if we're fortunate, a second, third, etc.

God had chances.  His first chance was Adam.  Things were going good, so He made Eve.  Things were still going well, so God left them alone in the Garden with one warning- don't eat from that tree.  Others are fine, but not that tree.  Of course, we know they ate from the tree, with a little prompting from the Serpent, and the First Chance started down the tubes.

God set out to save it with the Law.  He told Man how to gain redemption- and man, was it hard.  It seemed impossible.  Yet, Man took God's difficult Law and made it harder. 

God made Man with free will.  Man made bad choices.  God made the Law to rescue Man from bad choices.  Man made the Law God.

And so, God's First Chance ended.

You'd think He'd give up- all the heart-ache Man caused Him.  But He didn't.  See, Man was good, somewhere.  And the Law was good, as God intended before Man perverted it and it's intent.

God needed a do-over.

But, rather than forget all that had gone before, He built on what was Good.  He would marry the Law and the Man into One- the Christ, the Messiah.  Man would need not keep all the Law so rigorously, because the Man-Law would fulfill all the obligation.  The Man-Law must be fully Man- but He must also be fully God. 

So, God gave His Son.

Jesus is the Second Chance for mankind.  The Do-Over.  Where Adam failed, Jesus succeeded.  He honored God down to His last, painfully uttered words that speak volumes:  "It is finished."

You and I- all of us who have accepted this sacrifice Jesus made for us- have entered into the Second Chance.  The new life, the second Adam.  Had Jesus just died, our sins would be covered.  But because He lives, because the story didn't end on Friday, but just began on Sunday, we are forgiven and able to be more alive than ever.  We are free, free to begin again.

Now, if we have accepted Christ, we can begin.  But each day, each trial we endure, is a chance to re-embrace that Second Chance.  Lost a job?  Lost a loved one?  Contracted an illness?  Experienced failure?  All reasons to go back to Christ.

Just like when things are good is an excellent time to embrace the Second Chance.

Maybe things have been tough on you lately.  Maybe life has kicked you in the rear- or the teeth- and you just want to give up, to quit. 

Go ahead.

Die to that old way.  Die to those trials.  Give them to God, get counseling, talk to the problem maker, have a good cry, open up to the friend.  End the first chance, and embrace the opportunity to start over.

Live your Second Chance as only you can.

As only Christ makes possible.

ReLive

I've said it before, but I am not a morning person.

I exist in a semi-conscious state until 10 a.m. or so, and as such, spend a good portion of the morning sleepwalking through life. Multitasking is out of the question, and answering questions that require thought beyond multiple choice is a long, drawn out event. Essentially, I'm useless until late morning.

Now imagine living life that way. In a constant fog, we walk through- limp is a better word- bumping into people and things and never quite grasping what is going on. It's bad enough when this occurs in our physical life, but all too often, this is the constant state of our spiritual life.

Maybe it was a loss of faith, or a routine that became a rut, or assault after assault by negative events. Whatever caused it, your spirituality has fallen asleep- it has become dead. It gets really scary when this complacency becomes apathy- and you don't care if it gets better. That comes when you either really lose faith, or when you grow satisfied with where you are.

Both of those lead to spiritual death.

Jesus brought a dead man to life. Lazarus was physically dead- very dead. Four days dead. As the Munchkin Coroner said in the Wizard of Oz, "She's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead." Lazarus had a family who loved him, yet they had given up hope that he could be healed. Wouldn't you? Mary and Martha have become spiritually dead- they give all the right answers, but when reading their words, they seem...hollow. The story of Lazarus is as much about his resurrection as it is theirs.

Jesus enters the scene and speaks of being the Resurrection and the Life. Then He gives it. Lazarus comes out of the tomb, and Mary and Martha are given a spark to resuscitate their faith in Jesus. The moral of the story is that you are never too dead for Jesus to give you life- especially in the spiritual sense.

Jesus came to give us life, and give it to us abundantly. He wants us to not spend our lives half asleep, stumbling along on memorized prayers and speed-read Bible passages. He wants us to find our spark of life from Him, to live in Him, not just the knowledge of Him.

I know of people that know a lot about Jesus, but they are not alive in their faith. They have the right answers, they know the facts, they even pray regularly and read their Bibles. Yet they are not alive. For Jesus, life is not about knowing what to do and what to say, it is about knowing Him. If we do things just because they are expected of us, we are not living. But if our motivation is our love for and desire to know Christ, life fills our hearts and pours out of our actions and thoughts and words.

Lazarus' story is about the opportunity to ReLive. To be restored. To be resurrected.

Like Lazarus, I think we could all use a little jump start from time to time.