Touch Back

                                                                                   Photo by Mike Beswick

So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don't get tied up again in slavery to the law   Galatians 5:1 NLT 2007

 
Freedom.  We look for it in a lot of ways that we don’t realize.  We crave it. 

 

I was listening to a podcast of a sermon a friend of mine was giving recently.  He made a comment that he didn’t understand why Christians go back to old-time things.  He used “butter churning” as a metaphor.  Recently, I had been on a social media thread and mentioned that I was churning butter.  I had been shaking cream in a jar with some students of mine as they read, Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. They were thrilled to make their own butter and enjoyed the process and the sciences as they witnessed the fascinating progression and delicious results that they made happen on their own.  I had just made some with my son who was home for summer break.  It does seem weird, I admit.  (So does the image of football players at this point.  Hang on.)

 But, I became challenged by the viewed “set-back” of what was perceived “escapism.”  In a way, escaping is a form of freedom-seeking.  One of the forms that I see us go to for freedom finding are restorations of things.  I was restoring the process of making butter on my own.  I didn’t have to spend my money on something else someone else made and I could do it myself.  

 Cars give a sense of freedom. My bike did, riding a horse did, too.

There are people that restore old cars.  Often the person gets a car that they may have really liked as a child.  They weren’t able to own one themselves: not enough money, can’t drive, too young.  But, when they get older, that dream of being free to have one for themselves steps in.  They put some of themselves into re-creating one that they had liked from the past.  Sure, there are better cars today, more options, progressive improvements…but, we want to touch back to a place of freedom.  

 

Some touchbacks are family reunions, class reunions, visiting a place you went to when you were a teenager or finding a toy on e-bay that you used to have when you were a kid.  They are memories.  They take you to a place where you had a sense of security and adventure and it is a part of who you are.  These times are often short, little stops and an opportunity to get grounded to who you are and where you came from.  It frees you from today’s moments and expectations to a time where there were fewer, but to stay there in that isn’t progressing or maturing. That was more the point being made in the podcast regarding “butter churning.” 

 

In American football, the Touchback comes after you have strived, tackled, pushed and pulled against your opponent trying to keep them from gaining on you.  It is finally your turn to “receive” the ball.  The challenger kicks the ball to your end of the field.  All one has to do, instead of running the ball forward and dealing with the efforts in it, is to kneel down with the ball where you received it.  You are not tackled, chased and you don’t have to make a run for it.  You are free from fighting for your yardage.

You just kneel.

And, your gain is automatically to the 20 yard line.  You receive 20 yards.

Touchback

 

In Christianity, I have found myself in numerous times of striving.

Trying to make the gain.

Dodging the opponent.

Sometimes getting tackled.

Sometimes making a tackle. 

Sometimes making it into the end zone.  

 

I study Hebrew roots a lot in my Bible reading and I love it.  I can become caught up in it at times, too.  I heard someone recently talking about trying to "keep the Sabbath” and remembering to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.  I felt terrible that I hadn’t prayed much for that.  I started to feel bound again.  These things they are saying are good, but I felt pressure.  I knew I’d probably screw up.  I already had. 

 

Just afterwards, I was reading through Galatians 5.  It is about freedom.  It was about what Christ had done for my freedom.  It wasn’t about what I do.  I felt the pressure fall away from me.  He has taken care of all of my screw-ups; past, present and future.

 

As I did a TouchBack to the cross of what Christ did to free me, I received the gain without striving.  

 

The cross is our place to touchback.

To receive the freedom.  

There… freedom is given.

We are restored.

 

When we do progress and make a run in this life in Christ, we do have a place to touchback. The place of His cross.  We are free from tackles there.  Free from having to run and make an effort on our end.  It’s just receiving.  A place to make a gain and a place to go from again, strengthened by how we are loved and freed and given His Spirit of freedom and strength.

2 Corinthians 3:17  Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  ESV 2001