There’s a Hole in the Forgiveness Bucket

The truest definition of poverty is the inability to fix relationships. Lesser poverty is the inability to fix things. Consider a broken vehicle, if you have the funds you can have it fixed or replaced, if you don’t, it remains broken and probably gets more and more broken.

For things, money is a great tool for restoration. A lack of money means things don’t get fixed. A lack of spiritual capital means relationships don’t get fixed and it’s much worse because they’ll get more and more broken.

We can have all of the resources in the world and refuse to use them. This is being materially rich but spiritually poor. That old song, “There’s a hole in the bucket” captures this idea perfectly. The song is framed as a conversation and starts out with a declaration that something is broken. The response is simple, “Fix it.” The excuse is, “How do I fix it?” The response is, “Use the resources you have.” To which we hear, “The resources aren’t right.” – “Then make them right.” – “How?” – “With the tools provided.” One of the tools needs to be sharpened, and the sharpener requires water. “How am I supposed to get water?” – “Use the bucket.” And there is a long triumphant pause before,

“There’s a hole in the bucket!”

The original song is longer and more drawn out; it’s purposefully exhausting. The problem is not with the bucket, the problem is with the lack of desire to do meaningful work. In the song and in God’s economy the problem is not the tools. We have great tools: forgiveness, love, long-suffering, repentance, bearing with one another, conversation, prayer, the church…they are all functional tools, and while they could use some sharpening in most of our lives, they’re valid and functional.

When the relationship is irrevocably broken, love, peace, joy, and forgiveness are the tools we have…but if the other party has not repented enough, or they have not asked for forgiveness, or they’ve shown their true colors, or they’re too difficult to fix, then the tools are supposedly insufficient. There’s a hole in the bucket!

God, what do you want me to do? His response is clear, “Love one another, be a one another Christian, forgive as I’ve forgiven you,” or in other words, “Fix the relationship.” We respond, “The tools you’ve given me are insufficient and some are just outright broken.” There’s a hole in the bucket!

Jesus went to a man at the pool of Bethesda who had been lame for thirty-eight years. Jesus asked him bluntly, “Do you want to be healed?” It’s the closest Jesus ever got to making an accusation against someone who was not actively sinning. The man responds that though there is supposedly a tool here that can heal him, he’s unable to use it. He might have said, “There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Jesus, dear, Jesus, a hole!” Jesus tells him–not asks him–commands him to take up his bed and walk, and he does. In the follow-on conversation Jesus doesn’t warn him to be careful not to be lame again, he tells him to “Sin no more…” Jesus did not approach this man as a victim of his circumstances, but as a man who had tools of redemption and refused to use them. See John 5:1-17 for the whole story. Are you that man?

Is there a hole in your bucket? Figure out how to fix it. Is your relationship with God broken again? Repent and believe the gospel that he uses to restore and confirm and strengthen and establish! Are your relationships broken? Put love and forgiveness to work in fixing them. Are they too dull to do any good? Hone them through the reading and application of God’s word.

You’re as poor as your most broken relationship. Don’t pretend that God has not made you rich in Christ Jesus with the ability to fix relationships. Get to work. That hole in your bucket is not as big as you pretend it is, and Jesus says to you,

“See, you are well! Go and sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”