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Author: Kate Murray
I don’t normally watch commercials.
I have a Tivo unit and rarely watch shows live. This enables me to fast-forward through the commercials. But every once in a while I’ll catch a commercial or two and recently one caught my eye.
The commercial starts zoomed in on a kid whose mom is placing a football helmet over his goggle-clad head. She then taps the helmet and the shot zooms out to show her reaching into her SUV to get him a tennis racket. Once the shot has zoomed out, the viewer realizes the kid is covered in protective gear – everything from football shoulder pads, to shin guards, to a chest protector. As the kid waddles off to play tennis, the voiceover lauds the number of safety awards the advertised car company has won and ends the commercial by saying, “So it’s okay to be overprotective. We are.”
Even now as I watch it again on youtube, I wonder if that kid will have any fun while he plays. I just can’t imagine he will. He can barely walk which, I’m sure, means he won’t be able to run very quickly. Plus, he probably can’t swing the racket and will probably wind up missing every ball hit to him.
So what’s the point of even playing?
In many ways we are a culture obsessed with safety. We want to protect everything: our houses and cars with alarms as well as our money by putting it in bonds instead of stocks. But mostly we want to protect ourselves – sometimes choosing to leave relationships or not getting invested too much just so we don’t have to suffer.
And perhaps I should say, I – I often feel like that kid walking around with too much protective gear on.
So then what’s the point? Isn’t life boring (if not frustrating) if we’re wearing all sorts of safety equipment which prevents us from playing a bit?
I believe this is the sort of thing Paul was writing about to the Romans. In 8:2 he says to them, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”
Sin and death are the very things that make us want to protect ourselves. They stimulate the desire to wear any kind of protection at all and when we’re feeling the most vulnerable, it demands we wear enough to cover our bodies. Sin and death weigh us down – make us overprotective.
But the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus sets us free – free from the need to wear all that gear. And when we aren’t encumbered we are free to run and play, to swing the racket and enjoy a bit of the game, to enjoy life.
Sure, we’re pretty much guaranteed there will be some bumps and bruises along the way if we’re not wearing any protection. We may even find that we’ll take a ball right in the gut and it knocks the wind out of us for a bit. But those wounds will eventually heal and when they do the passion for playing, the thrill of scoring a point, and the feel of running will always pull us back into the game.
Overprotection leads into sin and death. But the Spirit of Christ sets us free to live.
Photo courtesy of bulletproofbra (rights)
