In Old Testament times, justice and law worked on the principle of “An eye for an eye” (See Exodus 21 for some examples). It was a little like the “Wild West” where scores were settled personally between families (think, “I am looking for the man who shot my paw”).
What
happened, though, if you killed someone accidentally? What if you were cutting a tree down and it
fell on your helper? Well, the law made
provision for that too. The Israelites
set apart six towns and called them “The Cities of Refuge” (see Joshua
20). If a person killed another without
forethought or malice, he could run to one of these cities, plead his case and
find safety. If the man’s family came demanding
retribution, the people of the city would protect the man until his case was
heard in court. The “Cities of Refuge”
were meant to be places where mercy and understanding reigned and where people
were treated “fairly”.
Those
cities are long gone, but the Spirit of them should still reign in one
place: the church. Ideally, the church should be the safest, most
accepting and most gracious place on earth.
It should be this way because it is filled with those who know that they
need grace, forgiveness and mercy. We
all make mistakes. We all need
mercy. We all need forgiveness. We all need help. In fact, we make an even bigger mistake when
we try to hide our faults and pretend to be perfect all the time.
A few
months ago, our Premier, Brad Wall, release a video of his campaign ad
bloopers. In this minute and a half
video, we see the Premier forgetting lines, muffing words and even tripping over
a step while talking. Overwhelmingly,
people loved this video because it took away all the slick, fake “politician” stuff
and showed him as a real person. We all
goof up; he was just brave enough to show it on “Youtube”.
The first
message of the church should be, “For all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God…” (Romans 3:23). However,
we need to remember the second part of that passage, which says, “…and [all]
are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ
Jesus” (verse 24).
In God’s
Kingdom sin is never acceptable, but sinners are always accepted (because that
is the only type of person there is).
If you are
looking for a safe place to seek God, please know that you would welcome here
any Sunday morning.
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