New Insight into Old Words

The following is a piece I wrote for the "Minister's Corner" column in our local paper this week.  It's been an eventful week for our family, and it's given me a lot to consider...
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I’ve been giving some thought lately to words I don’t hear much anymore.  Some I’ve only heard, but some I’ve used myself.  I’m thinking of words like “icebox,” “mimeograph,” “Kodachrome,” “transistor,” “curlers,” “HiFi,” “oleo,” “phonograph,” and “floppy drive.”  In effort to avoid dating myself too precisely, I’ll tell you I’ve never used the term “icebox,” but “floppy drive” is one I’ve seen both come and go.

Recently, certain experiences have caused me to think about another word I don’t hear as often as I used to.  That word is “redeem.”  Most often, “redeem” is heard in a religious context, but Green Stamps (and there’s another term we don’t use much anymore) were “redeemed,” too.  So what does the word really mean?

According to the dictionary, to redeem is “to make something better or more acceptable, to extricate from or help to overcome something detrimental, to change for the better—reform, repair, restore.”  I suppose trading a pile of Green Stamps for something, for most anything, would definitely constitute a “change for the better.”  In theological terms, though, “redeemed” or “redemption” has to do with being saved from sin or evil.  That’s usually considered to be something only God can do, but I really believe, at least in some circumstances, God calls us to participate with him in the process of redemption.

The recent experiences I mentioned earlier have to do with the arrival of our new grandson, Oliver.  Ollie is our first grandchild, and to say we’re excited wouldn’t even come close.  What’s been especially remarkable, though, is to see the process of redemption at work in Ollie’s young life.  You see, Ollie is adopted, a months-long process that was completed just this week.  And in Ollie’s case, adoption has served as a form of redemption, directed by God, but involving his birth mother, our daughter and son-in-law, and even his grandparents and aunts and uncles. 

The circumstances of Ollie’s birth family are complicated, and what could easily have been a very difficult, even tragic, situation has been redeemed.  Oliver’s adoption has unquestionably made a difficult situation something better—for him, for our family, and, yes, even for his birth mother.  But none of that would have happened if everybody, anybody, along the way had refused God’s invitation to be part of that redemption process.

My prayer for Ollie is that he’ll come to understand how God has moved to redeem him through adoption.  Too, I pray that Ollie will come to understand that God’s redemption for him is even bigger than physical adoption and that he’ll come to know God’s spiritual redemption, as well.  I look forward to what is ahead, but, for the moment, we simply celebrate the process of redemption that has brought Oliver Dean into our lives.