A Game of Freeze Tag

W

hat do you do on a summer evening?  This was never a problem in our neighborhood.  In fact, it didn’t matter whether it was summer, winter, spring, or fall.  We never had any difficulty figuring out what we would do.  The only question we had to consider was which of our mischievous activities would provide the most fun and the least amount of trouble with our parents or the adults in our neighborhood.

One of my fondest memories was playing a game of freeze tag in our back yard.  All the kids from the neighborhood would come over and an evening of games would ensue.  These could be basketball, dodge ball, HORSE, or a variety and/or combination of other games.  However, a game of freeze tag proved to one of the most fun and challenging.

For those of you who have never played freeze tag, here are the rules.  One person is chosen to be “it.”  This is a very democratic process, usually involving the election of someone to the office of “it” who wasn’t really planning on running for the job!  Anyway, a certain place is designated to be “home base”, another democratic process.  In our backyard, a small piece of concrete served to mark the spot for home base.  It also doubled for home plate when we played baseball but that is another story.

The idea of the game was to leave home base and make it back without being tagged by the “it” person.  If you were tagged, you were considered frozen and had to remain in that position until someone who had touched home base tagged you.  Then you ran like the wind to return to home base for safety.  If someone was particularly far away from home base and the “it” person was very good, the other members could form a line and pass the “electricity” from home base to that person.  The “it” person was powerless to freeze anyone as long as contact with home base was maintained.  When touched by the living chain from home base, the frozen person was thawed and instantly welcomed back home. 

Is there a more vivid picture of sharing the gospel and the wonderful truth of God’s salvation than this?  People all around us are frozen in position because they have never heard the truth about Jesus Christ or because no one from home base has come to share the wonderful story of and power of salvation with them.  They are all around us, some near, some far, some we know, others we don’t, but they are all frozen because they have never accepted Jesus as Savor and Lord.

In the wonderful book of Romans, Paul shares with us the great freedom found in Jesus and the salvation he offers to all who are frozen in sin.  Romans 8:1-3 reads, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.”

This is one of the most wonderful statements in all of scripture.  From the first verse of this chapter, Paul teaches that we are no longer condemned by God if we know Jesus Christ as our savior.  The Law (the Old Testament sacrificial system) had no power to forgive sins.  People were still frozen in their sin, keeping them separated from God.  But when Jesus came and offered himself as a sin offering, true freedom, the freedom God intended for us to have all along, came into the world.

Today, the game of freeze tag is still being played.  The playground is anywhere you go: to the mall, to the grocery store, to school, to work, and to church.  All around us, we see people frozen by sin, living a life in view of home base but never touching it.  For those of us who know Jesus Christ as savior, our mission is clear.  We must share the good news of salvation with those around us and bring them to home base.  The power of the gospel will thaw anything sin has done but unless we are willing to reach out and share with others, this game of spiritual freeze tag will continue. 

Where are you in this game?  Are you safely standing on home base, unwilling to leave its security or are you out there, sharing the power of Christ and his salvation to those who are frozen in life?  Are you sharing the power from home base today?