Redemption!

“But when the set time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.” Galatians 4:4-5

To redeem something means to bring it back from its broken or ruined state by restoring it.  After our sin, God could have started over, but He chose instead to redeem.

A few years ago we had our VW Passat fixed from a problem it had with overheating.  The first time I drove it after the “fix” was to a place about an hour away where it promptly broke down.  We had it towed from there to a local mechanic who told me the engine was destroyed, and said  he wouldn’t even work on it.  We then had it towed back to our mechanic in Madison.

After running tests on it, our mechanic explained what had happened, and owned their mistake.  He said that he learned in his analysis that there was a catch underneath this specific engine that collected waste, and at some point it had become too much. When the engine was idling it looked fine, so they thought the problem was solved, but when I drove it away the waste was carried back up into the engine and caused the irreparable damage.

It was a 2003 model, so the book value wasn’t much.  He said something like this to me: “I could give you a check for $2,000, and you could put that toward a different vehicle, or you could buy a new engine (at a much reduced cost) and I would put it in for free.”

It would have been easy to take his check, but I still saw a lot of value in that old car.  I chose redemption instead of starting over.  So did God, and it wasn’t cheap.  At just the right time in history, Jesus was born so He could die on a cross and pay for our redemption.  The Son became a Savior, so we could become the very children of God.

This is the “good news of great joy!”