The Good News About Saturday

Yesterday, I said that the single greatest cause of most of our Saturdays is the brokenness of humanity. That's not to say that every bad thing that happens is our fault, but simply that the state of humanity after the fall causes most of the bad things that we experience. It isn't necessarily our sin, but it's sin somewhere. It's brokenness somewhere that often breaks us. 

Then, I said that that's actually good news. 

When I said this, there were readers who likely heard it and thought to themselves, "Of course it's good news. If brokenness is a human problem, then a human solution will do. And that means that I can fix my own problem. I am in charge of my own future here." And surely, that is what the world tells us about these sorts of things. Hey, it's even what Job's friends were saying quite a bit. Your troubles are your problem, and if you'd just get real about yourself and about where you are, a lot of them would go away. 

But that's not at all what I said, and it's not what I'm saying. The fact that fallen humanity is at the center of most of our struggles isn't good news because it's relatively easy to fix. 

It's good news because it's already been fixed. 

There is already an answer for our brokenness, a balm for our wound. It's Jesus. That's what the entire incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection were about. It's grace. We already have it; it's with us right now. 

That means that we don't have to spend our entire lives feeling like we're engaged in some cosmic battle that we can never know the outcome of and never seems like it's going to end and always feels like it's one piece of human ingenuity away from finally being resolved. It's already resolved. The battle is already over, and the outcome is already determined. 

Jesus wins. 

Period. 

Putting human brokenness at the center of our troubles is good news because we already know how that turns out. We already know what the end game is. We already know who wins and who loses and how broken things come back together. We have seen broken things come back together. We have seen the lost found. We have seen the blind receive their sight. We have seen the lame walk. There is absolutely no question left about how our Saturday ends. 

It ends with Sunday. 

Sunday is a-comin'. 

In fact, Sunday is already here. 

This is the already-but-not-yet that we hear so often about that we're all living in. But it's true. This is where we find ourselves. We started this conversation last week by being honest that when our Saturday seems to be going on forever, we don't always want to hear about Sunday, but the good news that we can't lose sight of is that Sunday is coming. Sunday is real. It is even more real than any Saturday we are living in or ever have lived. It doesn't always feel that way, and we aren't always ready to hear it; we have to create sacred space for Saturday, too. 

But let us never lose sight of Sunday. 

It is, and always will be, good news.