Former Barossa
Valley deputy mayor John Harris recently told me a story from a time
when he was eight years old.
Back then, his family lived on a farm near Kapunda, where he had
his first experience with the police – 55 years ago. Money was pretty
scarce. One didn’t waste anything. But John and his brothers “accidentally”
broke a few eggs one day.
His mother had asked her three boys to collect them. That was okay.
The trouble was that, somehow, one of the eggs went flying through
the air. In seemingly no time at all, an egg fight had begun.
Later that evening, their mother remarked on how there were hardly
any eggs that day. So their dad did some checking and saw the broken
eggshells. The boys knew they were in for it.
But Dad didn’t belt them. He did something much worse. He told them
he was going to tell the local police officer, Sergeant Curtis, about
it. The boys had never met a police officer, let alone be in trouble
with one. They lived in fear of ever meeting Sergeant Curtis.
One day, when they were in town, they saw their dad talking to Sergeant
Curtis, and so hid down low on the seats of the Dodge Tourer the family
owned. When their father came back, they were amazed. Dad, again,
said nothing. He just drove home.
But, the next day, Sergeant Curtis arrived out at their farm. He
had never come to their farm before. The boys went and hid. After
some time calling out to them, however, they slowly came forward.
“I want to see you blokes,” said Sergeant Curtis, “I’ve got something
for you.”
Imagine how the boys must have felt.
He opened up the back door of his car and got out a new shiny red
football.
“Now I want to hear the sound of this footy being kicked around by
you boys all the time,” he told them.
As they ran off, happy as Larry, he called out: “And I don’t want
to hear about you throwing eggs anymore.”
Says John Harris: “From that day onwards, my respect for the police
has remained high. The gracious way we were handled, actually encouraged
us… and also began our careers in the local footy comp.”
Those boys deserved a hiding. But they were treated in a very wise,
undeserving, yet encouraging way. That’s grace. The kick of a football
will forever be the sound of grace in John Harris’s ears.
The Bible has some amazing stories about grace. In a scene from
the movie The Passion of the Christ, one sees a woman on her
face at Jesus’ feet. She had been caught in the act of adultery, but
Jesus got her off the hook and gave her a new life, saying: “Let him
who has not sinned cast the first stone.”
He asked of the woman: “Does anyone condemn you?”
“No,” she said.
“Then neither do I,” said Jesus. “Go and sin no more.”
The sound of grace for her was the sound of 200 stones dropping to
the ground. They were stones meant for her. What a beautiful sound.
The sound of grace was also in Jesus’ words and tone of voice.
The Harris boys also heard the sound of grace in Sergeant Curtis.
The sound of a footy being kicked is the sound of grace in John Harris’s
ears to this very day.
Have you heard the sound of grace in your life lately? I hope so.
That’s why Jesus came.
