Countless second chances
Since the contents of this half-written post came up conversation three times today, it’s time to finish it.
Those who are musically well-versed (at least in the limited genre of trendy contemporary-Christian music) will mock me for this, but I just discovered Rend Collective Experiment’s new(ish) album this week. And it is really, really good. The whole album is excellent, but today one song has been running through my mind. The chorus shouts,
Oh, your cross, it changes everything
There my world begins again with you
Oh, your cross, it’s where my hope restarts
A second chance is Heaven’s heart
Second Chance - Rend Collective Experiment
Now, I have an aversion to using the phrase “a second chance” when talking about the salvation God offers us, because it implies that although God has wiped away our sins and given us a clean slate, we’d better not mess it up now. It suggests that although we’ve been given a reprieve, we still have to earn our salvation; that we have a second chance but maybe not a third. But God’s grace does not stop there, and neither does the song:
My future hangs on this
You make preciousness from dust
Please don’t stop creating me
Your blood offers the chance
To rewind to innocence
Reborn perfect as a childWhen sin and ugliness
Collide with redemption’s kiss
Beauty awakens my romance
Always inside this mess
I have found forgiveness
Mercy infinite as youFragments of brokenness
Salvaged by the art of grace
You craft life from our mistakes
Like skies of my regrets
Outshined by his kindness
New life dawns over my soul
These verses expose a theme which is fundamental to Christianity: God is crafting, shaping, and rebuilding our lives to be beautiful reflections of his love. The cross does not simply cleanse us from the guilt of sin; it rescues us from the continued power of sin in our lives. The cross brings us back to God, where he continues to refine and mold and purify us.
As the bridge of the song declares,
Countless second chances we’ve been given at the cross!
The neat thing - which I recently rediscovered - is that this is not a new idea introduced in the Gospels, but something that has been part of God’s character since Genesis. It is the foundational theme throughout the entirety of scripture.
Somehow many Christians completely miss this, and wonder if God somehow changed from angry and spiteful to loving and all-merciful in the time between the Old and New Testaments. Worse, many assume that the Old Testament is completely different and largely irrelevant for Christians. Nothing could be more wrong.
For the last two weeks I’ve been on a schedule reading through the Bible in 90 days, which means that I’m already through Judges [1]. The first seven books of the Bible are abundantly clear: God is wildly compassionate and gracious, incredibly patient, and full of love.
You can’t read through the story of God pulling the Israelites out of Egypt, through the wilderness, and finally into their own land in Canaan and miss this point. Count how many times the people grumbled. Count how many times they complained to Moses and cried out against God. Count how many times they talked about returning to Egypt. Or the times they disobeyed the explicit command of God. Or remember that days after hearing the Ten Commandments from the voice of God himself, they made an idol and began worshiping it.
And God - although he punished them for their disobedience - continued to show them love. There was nothing good or special about them; they were chosen and given grace. Countless second chances, if you will.
And then there’s the law. It’s full of rules, common, simple, harsh, and strange. To our ears three millenia removed, parts of it seem like a frenetic rain dance to gain God’s benevolence. But that overlooks the fact that the law was given after God had shown them favor, and not before. The law is not described as a precondition, something to be done to earn God’s blessing, but instead as a response to the grace he has already given. One phrase pops up again and again as God speaks the law: “You must be holy, because I am holy.”
And so it is for us, too. Countless second chances, yes. But God isn’t stopping there. He’s remaking us, calling us to become like him.
[1] As a side note, this is totally the way to read the Old Testament, or at least the Pentateuch. Trying to get through parts of Leviticus by reading only one or two chapters at a time would feel about as hopeless as wandering in a desert for forty years, but when you fly through it in two or three days, it’s much easier to get through and you draw more connections.
