Are you a hoarder? Do you keep things, even if they are broken, or viewed by others as useless rubbish? Do you hold on to them saying the words: ‘This will be good for something later on.’ I suppose many of us are hoarders to some degree like that.
Last Sunday a new banner, or pulpit fall – if you prefer – greeted us in church. It is the handywork of Sheila. It is simple, colourful, and powerful. It is a cross, and it simply says JESUS. During early summer Sheila cleared the storage area at the balcony in the church. She came across some scrap textile materials. What Sheila saw was not rubbish that are a nuisance and should be thrown out but resource, raw material. And She envisaged a banner, the one we all can enjoy now. Something that is colourful, eye-catching, and proclaims that Jesus is Lord and Saviour.
When God looked at His creation and humanity broken and ruined by sin and evil did not say all this is good for nothing, I should get rid of them all. No, he rather came in Jesus Christ gathered the broken, the sinful, the marred, the ones who were regarded by the self-righteous as scrap, good for nothing and created something beautiful out of them! He saved them and filled His house with them and made them His people, His church to proclaim in colourful ways the victory of the cross and the saving love and power of Jesus Christ.
You cannot be so bad, so sinful, so broken that Jesus would not come and pick you up and create something beautiful, a masterpiece out of you! To me that banner proclaims not just the Lordship and saving grace of Jesus Christ, but also that there are no hopeless people or cases that God would throw away as useless scrap! He cares for all, for they are equally precious to Him. I give thanks to God that He is a hoarder, and he picked me up too! I hope the banner proclaims that message to you as well.
[from GV]