Almost Perfect
June 6, 2010
Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. ~Romans 8:1-4
How close can you get to perfection? Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers, got as close as you can get as a pitcher against the Cleveland Indians just last week, on June 2. Armando had faced 26 batters giving up no walks, hits or errors. But you must face 27 batters for a complete game. It was the last batter, Cleveland’s Jason Donald, who beat out the throw to first upsetting what would have been only the 21st perfect game in Major league history since the first one pitched on June 12, 1880.
But that game in 1880 didn’t have video. When you look at the replay, it is clear that 1st base umpire, Jim Joyce missed the call. And he admitted as much. Armando was perfect after all. Yet, unless baseball commissioner, Bud Selig chose to overturn the umpire’s call (which Selig has the authority to do) Armando will not have pitched a perfect game –as far as the official record books are concerned. And Bud Selig decided not to reverse the call. So Armando got as close as possible, but as far as the official rules were concerned, he wasn’t perfect.
In life, most of us don’t even get as close to perfect as Armando. Most of us know we’ve blown it long ago, and we keep blowing it. As a matter of fact only one person ever has lived a ‘perfect game’, and that was Jesus. And it is because of that he has the right to give to us what we cannot accomplish on our own: perfection. Paul said there was something the “law could not do”. What law cannot do is make lawbreakers perfect. But God is able to do what the law can’t; God can make it as if we had never sinned. When we trust in what Jesus did on the cross, by that trusting obedience the requirement of the law (perfection) is fulfilled in us. We make it into the record books as having lived a ‘perfect game’.
I’m OK with commissioner Selig choosing not to reverse the call. I would have been OK if he did. But I’m so glad that God has reversed the call on my life and given me forgiveness when I’ve committed too many errors in life. I love that ‘there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!’
Thank you Father, for your love and mercy; thank you for sending your son Jesus, to live and to die for me. Help me to live in your forgiveness and to trust in your power to do what your love calls me to do in life. I know I’ll never be perfect in my own performance, but I trust in you to love me just as if I’d never sinned. ─ John
John Wheeler ~ Denver, Colorado (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
John Wheeler is the University Church of Christ congregational minister.