REDEMPTION

My biological mother died when I was only 3 years old. I was the youngest of her four children. Because my father was in the Air Force and was being stationed overseas for a while, he wasn’t able to keep all of us kids together after my mother’s passing. So, we were passed along from one set of family members to another for over a year. My brother and I finally ended up staying with my grandfather and grandmother in Decatur, Alabama.

We lived “out in the country” several miles outside the city limits. My grandparents were by no means wealthy people, so they didn’t take us to town very often. The only entertainment we knew back in those days was fishing at the creek, feeding the cows and visiting with neighbors. Oh, yeah, and we would frequently walk to Baker’s Store just down the road from my grandparents’ house. Baker’s Store was a gas station and convenience store owned by a man named Murray Baker. Every once in a while, my grandparents would give my brother and me a couple of pennies to buy some penny candy at the store. That was the highlight of the week!

Now, up to that point in my life, I had never stepped foot inside a movie theater. A typical movie ticket cost about $1.25 back in those days. Add to that the cost of a bag of popcorn and a soda, and you’d be looking at a total cost of about $3. Well, as mentioned before, my grandparents had a very limited budget, so going to the movies was never an entertainment option. I had heard friends and relatives talk about going to the movies, but I had no idea what the experience was like for myself.

One day, though, my grandmother told my brother and me about a special promotional day at The Princess Theater in downtown Decatur. It was called “RC Bottle Cap Day at the Movies” (or something similar to that). On “Bottle Cap Day” you didn’t have to have money to get into the movies. All you needed was six RC Cola bottle caps. You could redeem the bottle caps for a movie ticket at the ticket booth.

Well, my grandparents didn’t drink much soda pop in those days. That would have been considered a luxury. So, my brother and I devised a plan. We walked down to Baker’s Store and searched the parking lot for discarded bottle caps.

There were hundreds of them laying on the ground all over the place. All we had to do was find six RC Cola caps each and we’d be able to go to the movies. As we searched that parking lot, any time we’d find an RC Cola bottle cap it was just like finding a treasure. We’d pick them up, clean them off and stick them in our pockets. After several minutes of searching, both of us had found the six bottle caps each that we needed. My grandfather took us to the Princess Theater that next Saturday morning and I experienced going to the movies for the very first time in my life.

My brother and I didn’t pay the full price of admission to get in to the movies that day. Instead, we got into the movies through a process called “Redemption.” Here’s my simplistic definition for redemption: “An act of exchanging something of lesser value for something of greater value.” My brother and I exchanged 12 seemingly worthless, discarded bottle caps for two movie tickets that day. What a deal that was!

Back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, lots of people took advantage of the redemption process through S&H green stamps. When you went grocery shopping in those days and spent any amount of money at participating stores, you’d receive S&H Green Stamps based on the amount of your purchase. Those stamps were nothing more than inexpensive pieces of adhesive-backed, perforated paper, yet, those who collected them were able to redeem them for valuable products contained in the S&H Green Stamp catalog.

Even today, if you are a coupon collector, you understand the process of redemption. You can take a slip of printed paper that you’ve clipped from a magazine or circular and redeem it for a discounted meal at the local fast-food restaurant (as I frequently do). I don’t know if they still do this, but years ago the coupon would have the actual cash value of the coupon printed in small letters at the bottom. It would say something similar to: “Cash Value 1/100th of a cent.” The promoters were letting you know that the true value of the coupon was not in the actual coupon itself (the paper and the ink) but in the exchange that would take place using the coupon.

At some time or another in your life, you’ve probably heard Jesus being called the “Redeemer.” Using my simplistic definition for “redemption,” you can understand that a redeemer is someone who exchanges something of lesser value for something of greater value. Just like those discarded bottle caps at Baker’s Store, our lives were seemingly insignificant. In our own estimation, we had little or no value in the grand scheme of things. But along came the Redeemer. He saw our true value. He saw something in us that others could not see – something that others had overlooked. He picked us up, cleaned us off and presented us to His Father in Heaven. A great exchange took place. Isaiah 61:3 describes the transaction:

Did you recognize the exchange in this verse? Did you see the redemption that took place? We had ashes to offer Him, and He gave us beauty in exchange. We had mourning and sadness, yet it was redeemed for the oil of joy. We had nothing but the spirit of heaviness to offer, but it was traded in for garments of praise. Jesus took those things of minimal value that we had to offer and exchanged them for heavenly treasures. We couldn’t pay for any of these blessings on our own. It was beyond our own ability to pay, just like the cost of two movie tickets was far beyond the ability of two young boys to pay. We couldn’t have done it … if not for this beautiful thing called REDEMPTION.