Restore Point

 “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we^* have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we have obtained access^* to this grace in which we stand…” - Romans 5:1

 On Thursday Linda came into my office and said, “Pastor Joe my computer isn’t working right. Could you check it out for me?”   I always shudder a little when I’m faced with a computer issue because numerous times in the past I have spent hours contending with a cantankerous computer after being asked for help.   This time, however, it wasn’t so bad.  It only took a few moments.  Basically what the computer needed was to be rebooted.   One of my favorite mottos when dealing with computers is, “Having trouble? - reboot!” 

 Computers with a Windows Operating System also have something called a “restore point.”  A “restore point” is a utility program that restores the settings in a computer to an earlier time.  A few weeks ago I downloaded a program into my computer and it messed everything up.  No matter what I did, the computer would not work correctly.  I went into the restore utility program and with the click of the mouse restored the computer to the day before, and it solved all my problems.

 People are not computers, but I know there have been plenty of times in my life when I wish I could have rebooted me!  There have been times I wished I could have restored my life to an earlier time and lived that part of my life all over again.  There have been times I wish I could have rebooted my day, my week or maybe even a year or more and undo some bad decisions and poor choices.

 At day’s end I will often review my day.  My days are filled with many things for which I need to give thanks to God, as well as things for which I need to confess to God.  Things will come into my mind that may be unpleasant to recall: a failure here; a bit of prideful posturing there; maybe I said or implied something that was not strictly truthful or exaggerated; perhaps I missed an opportunity for doing some good; maybe a moment of impatience when I was abrupt.  In the grand scheme of things none of them are that big a deal, but nevertheless they are incidents in which I lost a little slice of my humanity.  Those are the moments when I most wish I could just could just left click on a magic life mouse and restore my life to an earlier time; if only a few hours previous. 

 But we cannot do that.  As I said, we are not computers and we cannot simply reboot or click on a program that can restore life to an earlier time.  We have to live with and deal with the consequences of all that we have set into motion: the good decisions and the bad; past failures and successes; sorrows and joys; opportunities seized and missed; regrets for things done and left undone.

 In the everyday events of our lives there is much that occurs that destroys our sense of peace.   In Hebrew the word peace means not lack of conflict or absence of trouble, but peace means harmony – or being in right relationship. The Hebrew word is “shalom.”   Life is most fulfilling and greatest joy is experienced when we experience shalom: right-relationship with God; right-relationship with each other; with ourselves; and with the earth. 

 When our lives get fractured and disharmonious that is when we end up feeling anxious, regretful, guilty, fearful, confused, empty, out-of-control, bored, overlooked, down on ourselves, disappointed in others and a host of other feelings.  And of course, we frantically do everything in our power to restore or achieve a sense of peace.  We turn to many false gods to try to cope with our fractured and disharmonious lives.  We may try hard to patch things back up on our own, but in the end most of our attempts are frail and fall short.  Nothing seems to really work very well whether it is rationalization, prescription drugs, the blame game, alcohol, some other elaborate form of escape or some novel way to numb ourselves to life’s disharmony and lack of peace. 

 I was listening to a talk show in the car on Friday and the talk show host in a moment of unashamed honesty said, “I am 54 years old and have been looking for God my whole life.  I want to find God, I really do.”  There was a note of genuine honesty and deep frustration in his voice.  He apparently experiences that lack of peace in his deeper hunger/longing for something more; a restlessness of heart that steals away the sense of shalom/peace in his life.

 There’s a true story about a missionary to the Sawi tribe in New Guinea who hoped to bring the Christian gospel to this nearly stone-age tribe.  However, the missionary’s message was in conflict with the tribe’s accepted beliefs.  Christian values of love and forgiveness had no appeal to the Sawi.  For the Sawi, violence and deceit against their enemies, the Haenam Tribe, was the highest virtue.  They saw no reason to change their patterns of cruelty toward their enemies. In fact, the only part of the story of Jesus the Sawi could identify with was the story of Judas’ betrayal. To them Judas was a genuine hero. 

 Finally the missionary decided to leave New Guinea, seeing no hope of ever getting through to the Sawi people.  For reasons he did not fully understand the Sawi people did not want him to leave.  Even though they had rejected his message, they had not rejected him and just before he left, the Sawi tribe, along with their bitter enemies the Haenam Tribe, gathered outside of the missionary’s home and performed a ceremony that was their final attempt to convince the missionary to stay. 

 In a totally astonishing move, the chief of the Sawi tribe presented his 6-month old son to the enemy chief.  He handed over his own son to his most bitter enemy!  A member of the tribe explained to the missionary that this was a very risky peace gesture.  If the enemy tribal chief did not kill the child, but accepted the child, they would rename the child and raise the child as one of their own.  By mutual agreement as long as the child lived unharmed, no wars could be fought between the two tribes.  The child was called the “peace-child.”

 Something clicked in the missionary’s racing mind and pounding heart as he watched the unbelievable spectacle unfold before him.  At last, he had found a story, even in this violent culture that could convey the message of a forgiving God.  He gathered the members of the tribe around him and with his heart in his throat, told them about God’s peace-child; that God sent his own son, Jesus, to live among his enemies to make peace with humankind.

 Someone asked me once, “Have you made your peace with God?”  I answered, “No, God has made peace with me.  I simply trust God’s terms.”

 “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…”

 God’s terms for peace is pure grace, grace that flows from the cross of Jesus Christ.  It is God who makes things right between us and God.  It is God who makes peace with us.  It is God who restores the harmony that has been lost.  There is nothing for us to achieve, but only trust the terms. 

 Martian Luther, in his catechism, said that the cross of grace is the place that we need to revisit on a daily basis.  For Luther, Christian growth and a life of spirituality is a growth in grace, not a growth in moral achievement or superiority over others.  It is only at the foot of the cross that we find truest peace; authentic shalom, harmony with God - not because of what we do but because of everything God has done for us.

 The cross of Jesus Christ and the grace that flows from there into your life and mine is God’s great “restore point.”   No, we cannot go back and redo our lives, but at the cross we receive the glorious good news that regardless of the status of our lives, who we are and what we’ve done, we are forgiven and cherished beyond our wildest imaginings.  Like a mighty river, grace and forgiveness flow into our lives through faith and simple trust, and put us in right relationship with God; a relationship that has the power to reconcile us and make things right with others and even ourselves. 

 No, we cannot redo our lives, but we can be set free from the power the past has over us and set loose in the world to be God’s agents of reconciliation and grace.