Tossing ’em Out?
Or Waiting to Save ‘em?
Thursday, May 11, 2023
Are the Sour Grapes Worth Saving?
Isaiah 65:8
Thus says the Lord: As the wine is found in the cluster, and they say, ‘Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it’, so I will do for my servants’ sake, and not destroy them all.
John 3:16-18
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
Words of Grace For Today
While fires rage, and smoke billows and spreads turning sunsets and skies red, and sunrises muted, and people coughing, sneezing and wheezing, eyes watering, where do we turn for help?
Do we think that God has turned against us? It is not hard to turn that corner and blame our creator for the mess we are in. Climate change! Well surely (we could say) God knew that would happen and could have made things better for us all! But No! God turns against us and will destroy us, by fire or ice, by flood or drought, by raging storms or shifting earth. Surely God is out to get us and destroy us all, whether we are innocent or not!
God knew we might say these things, as often humans have through history. So God sent Jesus, God’s own son, to show us that God intends for us and all that world to be living blessings for all around. God does not wish to destroy us, though we may certainly deserve nothing else.
God is like the good vintner who sees the potential in each cluster of grapes, and allows the good to grow, and hope that the bad will ripen into something quite usable, if only vinegar.
So God hopes for us, too. God hopes that we might be saved from ourselves and all evil.
How that changes every day, eh?