Good As New
I am the resident handy-man around our house and fix everything from cars to washing machines and from shoes to baby dolls. But what would my daughter think if she brought me her broken bike brake and I wrapped it in duct tape and said it was “as good as new,” only for it to break again before she left the driveway? I do not think she would want my help again. Something that is broken needs to be fixed, not merely covered up.
Or what would my 16 year old son think if I had him bring me his unbroken compound bow so that I could pretend to fix it? I could go through the motions of cleaning up a little spot, wiping a little superglue on, putting it in a vice to set, and voila, “as good as new!” I don’t think he would be impressed by my fancy show and tell.
But these are only playthings and trinkets. What if that which needs fixing is your life and your soul? If your life is broken and your soul in peril, how would you want them fixed? I imagine you would want them fixed better than the bicycle brakes or the compound bow. Some might take their broken soul and life to a church for help. But what will they find?
On the one hand, there are people that are really broken and hurting and bring their problems to church. Unfortunately, too many churches offer a feelgood covering of eloquent prayers, novenas, entertaining music, more rules to follow or a collection plate that begs to be filled. These are nothing more than superficial and superstitious remedies that might, like duct tape on a bicycle brake, make them feel “as good as new”, but only until they get out the door.
On the other hand, there are also churches full of people who, like that compound bow that was not broken, come to church for show and tell. They praise Jesus every Sunday for the cure, but they never bring anything for Jesus to fix. They “always” believed and they “never” sinned. To these we want to ask, “how can you be found, if you were never lost?” “How can you be forgiven, if you never sinned against God?” “How can you be saved from hell if you were never in hell’s deadly clutches?” And, “Why rejoice over being ‘as good as new’ when nothing happened?”
The truth is that we really are broken and we really are going to hell because of our sin against God. We really do need to be fixed. The truth is that the church can not fix us, but the church can and should take us to Jesus. And when we take our sins and broken lives to Jesus, Jesus does not put some tape or band-aids over our wounds. Jesus does not entertain us with some fancy show and tell. Jesus makes us “as good as new.”
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17