I Needed Round 2

My first bike appeared under (or near, I should say) the Christmas tree in 1965. A Western Flyer Sonic Flyer, it was a nice, shiny red traditional kind of bike—you know, typical design with a typical saddle kids in the mid-60s loved. I was thrilled with it and proud to show it off to my friends.

I loved my bike.

Bike Envy!

Until about three years later when my little brother got a gold Schwinn Stingray! Banana seat. Those awesome butterfly handlebars that made popping wheelies super easy. And handbrakes!  That’s when bike envy kicked in big time.

I wanted the banana seat, but there was no way to retrofit my bike to make it work. I wanted the butterfly handlebars! But again, it wasn’t practical for my bike, and besides, it’d look a bit corny.

Ah, but handbrakes! Now that I could rig up on my Sonic Flyer.

Don’t remember where I got ahold of one—yes, one—but I did. The cable was short, so obviously the handbrake was designed for the front wheel.

My Flyer had no such designed hole. So, I had to get creative and improvise. My brother’s stingray was fenderless, so mine had to be, too. Off went the front fender. And that left a perfect space to thread the handbrake bolt through an opening, ratchet the nut down as tightly as an 11-year-old could turn the pliers, adjust the caliper and brake pads, and Viola! My Sonic Flyer was now equipped with one of the coolest pieces of new-fangled bike equipment! And it worked like a charm.

Until one day….

I was riding slowly uphill on one of the residential streets several blocks from home, came to a stop, and decided to turn right and take a level street for a couple blocks. I pumped the pedals hard to get up some speed, and about half a block later the next thing I knew was heading over my Sonic Flyer handlebars.

Then my face was numb as I tried to get to my feet.

A lady came running out of her house towards me, and that’s when I realized my nose was gushing. She had a towel with her, covered my nose, and led me into her kitchen. Somehow, I was able to give her my phone number, I think. Whatever the case, within minutes, my mom arrived, loaded me in the car, and off we went to the emergency room.

Later, I was able to figure out what happened. My ingenious handbrake design wasn’t so ingenious after all. Or maybe it was my inability to tighten down the nut. Or both. The nut loosened, fell off, and the handbrake ended up in the spokes of the front wheel.

The wheel stopped.

I didn’t.

I recall a follow up visit in the doctor’s office a couple weeks later, when all the packing and bandages were removed. He was quite pleased, he said, with how things were healing. “But,” he continued, “he’s probably going to want more surgery somewhere down the road.”

I didn’t know why he said that then—I could actually breathe through my nose again! But I never got that second surgery, and now when I look in the mirror or at one of those wretched selfies, I know what he was talking about. You probably do, too, if you’ve seen my photo. The benefit of a second surgery would have straightened out my crooked schnoz.

Surgery #1 addressed the immediate crisis, stopped the hemorrhaging, and opened up my nasal passages. The benefit of surgery #2 would’ve been to restore a measure of symmetry to my face!

This traumatic memory flooded back when I read a quotation from Thomas Manton and Charles Spurgeon’s comments on it.

A malefactor that hath a leprosy on him needs not only a pardon, but a medicine; and in a broken leg [or nose, in my case!], not only ease of pain is desirable, but that the bone be set right. So we need both justification and sanctification.

This needs some explaining, and Spurgeon does a good job of it. But first, a malefactor is one who’s broken the law. Remember the two thieves crucified with Jesus? “Malefactors” Luke’s gospel calls them in the King James Version. Criminals.

So, on Manton’s quotation, Spurgeon comments:

Justification saves the malefactor, and sanctification cures him of his spiritual disease. Are they not both equally desirable? Who would wish to miss the one or the other if in need of them? Pardon removes the pain of our broken bones, but spiritual renewal reduces the fracture. Let us not be content with half a gospel, but obtain a whole Christ for our broken hearts. Renewal of life is every way as desirable as forgiveness of sin. As well be full of guilt as full of guile.

Lord, thy poor servant is by nature both malefactor and leper, and nothing will serve my turn but a double-handed blessing. I pray thee absolve me, and cure me, too….

Charles Spurgeon, Flowers from a Puritan Garden

Here’s a funny thing about my broken nose. Believe me, I was thrilled to have that lady help staunch the bleeding and the surgeon to set things back as best he could at the time. It was such a wonderful feeling to get that nose-stuffed pack removed a few weeks later and be able to breathe again! But over time, I came to realize more needed to be done. And the older I’ve gotten, the more obvious that need seems—to me, at least!

So it is with the Christian, no?

When God in His grace brings a sinner to repentance and faith in Jesus as the Savior of his soul, a tremendous weight of guilt falls away and is replaced by a lighthearted joy as sin is forgiven and the sinner now stands justified before God!

It doesn’t take long, though, for one so graciously justified to realize he needs daily spiritual renewal—sanctification, if you will—to cure him of his spiritual disease. To be like Jesus is the goal, but how far short does he fall! Eventually the young Christian discovers that this goal of Christlikeness is a life-long process reaching completion only when one meets the Savior face to face.  

The Apostle John expressed the Christian’s experience this way:

Beloved, we are God’s children, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he [Jesus] appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself as he is pure.

1 John 3:2-3

Over the years, I’ve come to accept that I never had that second surgery and never will. It’s debatable, I suppose, if I should have. But, oh well.

As a Christian, though, I can’t be content merely to know Christ paid the pardon for my sin and secured my eternal life in His death and resurrection. I want—and need—the ongoing “surgery” that will make me more and more like Him!