God’s Redeeming Love
Written Winter of 2005

Easter is just around the corner and the warm breezes of spring are calling us to go outdoors.  We want to again experience the new life, the resurrection power present in spring.  Sometimes the heaviness of winter and its depressing issues force us to plead for the increased light and redemption found in spring.

I felt tremendous sadness recently when I heard about a local coach who lost his job due to a crime he committed 20 years ago.  He had committed the “unpardonable sin” in our society today:  child molestation. He was actually a good coach and had been well-liked till someone found a record on the internet of what he had done many years earlier. While I agree that this is an egregious act, I felt sadness that someone in his shoes can’t redeem himself by good behavior, even after 20 years. So, I was wondering if we make sexual offenders the “lepers” of today, the ones that are too ugly to get close to, afraid that their sexual sickness may pass on to us?  I don’t know what I would do if I ever found myself in this position with no hope of redemption.

One of my favorite literary lines is from Raisin in the Sun when Mama says, “Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most, when they done good and made things easy for everybody?  Well, then you ain’t through learning—because that ain’t the time at all.  It’s when he’s at his lowest and can’t believe in himself cause the world done whipped him so.”

So, I wish for all of us a cleansing spirit in this Easter season.  Let’s let go of the old prejudices and hatreds that hold us back, and cling to the acceptance and forgiveness we see in the cross: Christ’s redeeming act of love. –BBM