Dear Friend,
A.J. Gordon was the
great British pastor of the Clarendon Church in Boston, Massachusetts. One
day he met a young boy in front of the sanctuary carrying a rusty cage in which
several birds fluttered nervously. Gordon inquired, “Son, where did you get
those birds?”
The boy replied, “I
trapped them out in the field.”
“What are you going to
do with them?”
“I'm going to play with
them, and then I guess I'll just feed them to an old cat we have at home”.
When Gordon offered to
buy them, the lad exclaimed, “Mr, you don't want them, they're just little old
wild birds and they can't sing very well”.
Gordon replied, “I'll
give you $2.00 for the cage and the birds.”
“OK” said the little
boy, “it's a deal, but you're making a bad bargain."
The exchange was made,
and the boy went away whistling, happy with his shiny coins. Gordon walked
around to the back of the church property, opened the door of the small wire
coop, and let the struggling creatures soar into the blue.
The next Sunday he took
the empty cage into the pulpit and used it to illustrate his sermon about
Christ coming to seek and to save the lost, paying for them with His own
precious blood. “That boy told me the birds were not songsters,” said Gordon,
“but when I released them and they winged their way heavenward, it seemed to me
like they were singing, ‘Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed.’”
Hebrews 12 provides some
insight into why we call today Good Friday. Jesus went to the cross that we
might sing, “Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed.” “Because of the joy awaiting Him,
He endured the cross, disregarding the shame. Now He is seated in the place of
honor beside God’s Throne” (v 2 NLB).
What was His joy? It was
the knowing His purpose had been completed and that you and I were redeemed,
forgiven and headed to heaven to one day be with Him forever.
Yes, you and I were the
reason He hung on that cross. “Jesus paid a debt He did not owe because we owed
a debt we could not pay.”
Yours in the Easter
faith,
Tom
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