It’s a very familiar scene. We show up at the course, do our stretches and warm-ups, spend some time on the putting green, sinking putt after putt. Our sense of expectation of that “personal best” rising with every sunk putt.
It is finally time to head to the first tee, and our anticipation at an all time high. We just know that this must be the day for that low score. After all, we’ve been logging lots of practice time on the range and putting green, so it stands to reason that the low round is right there, and we think, “today’s the day”.
We break out that brand new sleeve of Callaway balls befitting such an occasion. Then tee up for that first drive of the day. In our mind, we see that fairway splitter towering down some 300 yards center cut in the short grass.
Then it happens, instead of the fairway splitter, we top the ball and it ends up just past the ladies’ tee box. No problem we think, it’s a par five, and not too long so a good second shot, and we’re right there. We then push our 3-wood into the rough on the right, have to punch out and then we’re looking at scrambling just to save bogey. We finally get on the green in 4 and proceed to 3-putt for a double bogey.
As we finish the front nine, the thought of the personal best is a distant memory as we haven’t made a single par. We consider stopping at the turn, but really don’t want to leave our friends that way, so we trudge on.
The misery continues on the back. The thought of walking off the course intensifies with every shot. Then it happens, we hit that fairway splitter (the one that we were expecting on the first tee), on number 16 and it leads to a birdie three. We follow that with a par and another birdie on 18. Instead of giving up the game, we’re ready to tee it up again!
Redemption. Even though, we didn’t rally sufficient enough to redeem this round, we still feel that the personal best is still out there.
This is how redemption works; it turns despair into the opposite—hope!
As Paul teaches in Romans, redemption works much the same way in the relationship with God and the world. When that relationship, which was perfect at the time of creation, was broken as soon as humans acted out their inclination to sin.
Paul points out that this was the beginning point for the reflection on the bond between man and God: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,…”
If that would have been it, if sin had the final word, we wouldn’t know anything but despair, because our sin would continually separate us from God.
Fortunately, God sent Jesus Christ to justify us in spite of our sin, taking HIS righteousness and replacing it with our unrighteousness which made us acceptable in God’s sight.
This is divine Redemption. And redemption literally means, “a loosing away”. Experiencing redemption is like having chains fall off.
You see, when we personally accept and lay hold of the gift of salvation, and the deliverance from sin God makes available through Jesus Christ, at that point we are redeemed.
This doesn’t mean we never sin again, or that our sin will no longer grieve the Holy Spirit OR ourselves. But what it DOES mean is that we never have to be CONTROLLED by sin.
Just like a horrible round of golf can be salvaged by a few good, closing shots, God can redeem our lives, no matter how messy, from the dominion of sin.
You may think that is too good to be true; But not for us golfers. We know the pleasure of having a rotten game turn around. It’s that shot that keeps us coming back; that those bad shots don’t make us give up in disgust proves that we have truly experienced the game’s power to redeem.
And since we golfers know that redemption is NOT too good to be true, don’t you think that God might have just some special witness for us to make to those who haven’t yet learned this wonderful lesson from our beloved game?