While re-arranging my pantry, I moved the silverware storage chest and cleaned the area. Before I put the chest back on the bottom shelf, I opened the lid. To my chagrin, my grandmother’s sterling silverware was black with tarnish. My mother inherited the silverware after her mother passed away and I became heir to the silverware after my mother died several years ago.
I took out a spoon and seeing the silverware brought back memories of when I was a young girl and had to polish the silverware at Easter time. Every year, Mom always had a big brunch followed by an egg hunt and invited my aunt, uncle and cousins over for the big day. Back then as I smeared the pink clay-like polish on the blackened silverware, I wondered why don’t we just use our everyday silverware at Easter? Although I must admit that when the silverware was polished, its luster made it look like new.
Today, I wonder that if the tarnished silverware could talk, would their conversation have gone something like this:
Said the spoon to the fork, “I am ugly and tarnished and nobody cares.”
Said the fork to the spoon, “I have my own problems. I cannot help you.”
The knife interrupted, “Why all the fuss? Accept your lot in your poor miserable existence. I did when I did all I could but it was not enough.”
Said the spoon to the knife, “Did you lose hope or purpose? Anyway, there’s got to be more than just sitting in this dark box with its old tattered felt that seems to long ago have lost its purpose as well.”
Said the knife to the spoon, “Get over it! There is no hope for you. There’s no purpose for you.”
Said the spoon to the knife and the fork, “ You two make me sad. One has no hope and the other has no love.”
Said the knife to the spoon, “Listen! If you don’t help yourself, nobody else will. We are doomed to live in this dark place forever. The whole lot of us in here. Whether we have ‘sterling’ stamped on our backs or not.”
Said the fork to the knife, “If the only way out is to do the work yourself, how come you’re still in here? Never mind, I’ve got my own problems, so I don’t care about you or your problems.”
This is pretty much the way it is with all mankind. We are all tarnished. Black with sin. Helpless to help ourselves. In darkness forever. No reason for our existence. No hope.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. We are rescued from eternal darkness to everlasting life. We are saved by grace through faith. This is not of our own doing; it is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one may boast.
If you are still black with sin, do not remain tarnished, but believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. You are made new with purpose couched in love.