I heard a story once about a little boy who saw a toy boat in the window of a toy store. He saved up all his money for weeks until he could finally afford that toy boat. Proud of his purchase, he immediately took his toy boat out to the pond to sail it. Sadly, the string broke and the toy boat drifted away from the boy, and he couldn’t get it back. It seemed that his toy boat was lost forever.
A few days later, he passed the toy store and there in the window was his boat! Someone had saved it from the pond, and it was for sale yet again. So he went home, and saved up his money again, and he bought the boat a second time. When he walked out of the store, he said, “You are truly mine now! I’ve bought you twice!”
The first definition of “redeem” is “to buy back, repurchase.” The little boy redeemed his toy boat: he bought it back.
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Another one of the many definitions for “redeem” is “to make good on, fulfill.” The first thing that comes to mind on this one for me is a coupon. Say you have a coupon for, oh I don’t know, there are coupons for everything! How about: “Buy one toothbrush, get one FREE!” Maybe you’re a mom and both of your kids are due for new toothbrushes, or you’re like my grandparents and you keep a stash because your daughter’s family inevitably forgets to pack their toothbrushes every single time they come to visit, or maybe you’re trying to send a subliminal message concerning hygiene through your stocking stuffers.
Anyway, that little square of flimsy paper has value: it is worth the price of one toothbrush. So you take it to the store, you pick out your two toothbrushes, and you hand the cashier the toothbrushes and the coupon, then you only have to pay the price of one of them: the other toothbrush is free. You have made good on that coupon, you have fulfilled its original value. You have redeemed that coupon.
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Redeeming something also means “to release from blame,” or “to repair or restore.” If you’ve ever had an ex, you understand that annoying tendency of certain things like songs or places to remind you of your ex. As my ex was part of my own identity crisis, I took this tendency to the extreme. Songs, places, movies, actors, smells, words, accents, the armed forces, certain outfits, I swear just about everything was an excruciating reminder of what I viewed at the time to be a gaping hole that had been ripped in my life. It was pathetic almost to Twilight Saga extremes.
I had watched Despicable Me in theatres on a date with my ex, and so when it was plugged in at a friend’s house with my family there, the first thing I did was think about him. But once the minions appeared on the screen speaking their squeaky, gibberish language, my brother (who is three years older than me, and therefore supposed to be some kind of serious, responsible adult) just about died laughing. We finally had to stop the movie because we were all laughing and wondering when he was going to start breathing again. Suddenly, that hilarious, adorable movie was no longer linked to memories of my ex, but memories of my brother’s nearly-fatal laughing fit, and I could enjoy the movie. This is good, because it’s a hilarious and adorable movie!
After making this discovery, I started no longer avoiding things that reminded me of my ex (which was an impossible task anyway), but instead seeking them out to create new memories to link them to. Sonic became a place to park the car and study between school and work, RED became a good movie that I watched with my parents, and the blue dress that I wore on a particularly disastrous date was the dress I wore the day I graduated from Metro with my Associates degree. All of these things that I thought would be eternal reminders could be released from connotations to a boy that was merely a small part of my childhood, they could be restored to what they were before the break-up messed them up and be simply good movies, fun places, and cute clothes. They could be redeemed.
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Ephesians 1:7-8 says this: “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.” Because of Christ, we are released from blame for what we have done. We are repaired and restored to the creations that God originally made us. We fulfill the purpose for our existence: to be pleasing creations of God that bring glory to Him. We are the toy boat that the little boy bought twice: once when God created us, and again when Christ died for us. God bought us twice, so we are truly His. We are redeemed!
