By Katy Mariotti
A Gift Instead
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Ephesians 2:8-9, English Standard Version
Every year on Halloween for as long as I can remember I’ve carved pumpkins. It was so fun to do as a kid and now it’s fun to see how excited my own kids get. They love to design a face or pattern and carve it out, then see what it looks like when it glows! Even more fun, for me at least, is eating the roasted pumpkin seeds afterward!
The way I just described it makes it sound clean, doesn’t it? Like the roasted pumpkin seeds just magically appeared after we carved the pumpkins. If you look at my picture today you will see that is certainly not the case. When carving a pumpkin the first job is to dig all the guts out. My kids have always hated that part, but they’re big enough now (at least the older ones) that they’ll do it mostly on their own.
However, no one helps with the pumpkin seeds. And honestly? I don’t blame them. Separating the seeds from all those pumpkin guts is a messy job. It’s slimy and sticky. It’s time consuming. It stains your hands orange. One year our pumpkins froze but we carved them anyway, and when I got done separating all the seeds I could barely feel my fingers! But I do it for the reward of the tasty snack at the end.
It would be easy to pull from this tale that hard work comes with reward. And that can be true. But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes we work hard and it feels like nothing comes of it. It feels like we just keep going for the unattainable… We keep digging through the pumpkin guts and never get to eat the seeds at the end. Or we do all that work and accidentally burn the seeds, or over season them.
When it comes to our salvation and the love of God, we can’t save ourselves. We can’t work hard enough to make things right… We will always make mistakes. The good news is that God sent His Son Jesus to do the messy work for us, not because we deserve it, but as a gift. We don’t have to work for God’s love, we have always had it!
How wonderful to know that no matter how our toils end up in life, the greatest reward has already been achieved! We can relax in that truth. Amen!
Copyright Family of Christ Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado
