irreversibility reversed

r e d e m p t i o n.

"the act of saving something or someone from appearingly irreversible decline." -Webster

In the Hebrew text, this word was used to mean "deliver, restore, rescue, or buy back" from slavery or death.

We hear the phrase "redeem yourself" thrown around all the time on ESPN, with friends after an embarrassing moment, or even just a stupid mistake.

Essentially, this word is the act of returning to the good and beauty that once WAS, despite the chaotic disaster it has BECOME... I know I can look back over my past and see so many choices that held the ability to blossom into something great and life-giving, that instead I let spiral into something death-inviting.

How often I've found myself asking:
"How did I get here?"
"How will I ever get out of this?"
"Will this ever change or go away?"

Redemption looks the least possible in the darkest places. In the most hopeless places. Those places we hate revisiting because they're so painful and shameful. Those places we are positive could NEVER be renewed or made into something good. The solution would seem to be to just accept it and continue or do everything possible to get rid of it.

But Jesus chooses a different solution. He chooses to r e d e e m.
To turn the hopeless pain of our yesterdays into the uncontainable beauty of our tomorrows.

The 3rd definition by Webster of redemption is literally "the atonement for human sin by Jesus Christ on the Cross." Talk about "appearingly irreversable decline"... We were DEAD, hopeless, cut off from the Light, swallowed up by the grave, and drowning in our sin... and Jesus took our appearingly irreversible decline to hell and turned it into an unconditional, irreversible stamp of our salvation. Even by using a CROSS-- the Roman symbol of death, Jesus redeemed that appearingly irreversable image into an unchanging, irreversible image of LIFE.

He bought us back. He sold Himself so that we could be restored.
If He can redeem the condition of our souls, He can redeem anything.
From the trees in my backyard that have died, to the past behind me that seems irreversible.

If you find yourself a slave to a moment in your past, Jesus has bought that moment back.
You can't pretend like it's not there, but you can let Him redeem it.
If you find yourself a slave to an addiction, Jesus has bought your freedom.
You can't continue in it because it seems hopeless to change, but you can let Him redeem it.

What appears irreversably declining in your life right now?
Your past? A situation? A relationship? A memory? An addiction?

Let Him buy your irreversible hopelessness with HIS irreversible grace.


[[Because I believe in the God who brings the dead back to life and creates new things out of nothing]] Romans 4:17


redeemed.