Covered in Red

"What's that, Grandpa?" Rafael pointed to some small cards and pieces of shiny red paper on the kitchen table.Grandpa smiled. "Grandma found these when she was cleaning the attic the other day. When I was a boy, we used to get these as prizes in cereal boxes--they're something like baseball cards." "Wow! They're really old!" Rafael was impressed. "What are the shiny red papers for?" "That's what makes these cards interesting," Grandpa replied. "Look at this one. It's a picture of Babe Ruth." Grandpa showed Rafael the picture of the famous baseball player, then turned the card over. "Now, see this question? It says, 'What was Babe Ruth's real name?' To find the answer, we put this shiny red paper--it's called cellophane--right over the question. Now what do you see?" "George Herman Ruth," Rafael read. "The question disappeared, and the answer showed up! Cool!" "Right," said Grandpa. "This cellophane taught me a lesson.""You mean because you learned Babe Ruth's real name?" Rafael asked.Grandpa laughed. "Something more important," he said. "When I was young, I knew I was a sinner. I was a bit of a troublemaker, so I was reminded of it often! I'd heard that we all needed to have our sin covered by the blood of Jesus, but I never understood it until my Sunday school teacher brought this very same Babe Ruth card to class one day. 'Someone read the question on the back,' he said as he turned it over. But he had put the red paper over the question, so we told him we could only see the answer. He nodded. 'When the question is covered by the red paper, you can't see it--you just see the answer. And when you trust Jesus as your Savior, your sin is covered by His blood. Then God doesn't see your sin anymore. Instead, He sees you as righteous, or good, and He sees Jesus living in you.' I've never forgotten that." Rafael nodded thoughtfully. "I'm going to remember it too." -Phyllis M. Robinson