A young boy was visiting the Washington Monument and walked up to one of the park staff to disclose that he was interested in purchasing the monument to bring back to his home. The park ranger, wanting to humour the child, asked the boy how much money he had in his wallet. The boy took his wallet out, counted up his change, and announced he had $1.88 to offer in exchange for the monument. The park ranger replied: “Well, first, the monument isn’t for sale. Second, even if it were for sale, it’s worth much more money than you could afford to pay. Third, since you are a citizen of the United States, it already belongs to you.” The analogy to forgiveness: we can’t buy it (God offers it to us freely), we can’t earn it (i.e. there’s nothing we can give up that would be enough to buy our forgiveness unless God had made the perfect sacrifice for us), and, upon accepting Christ, we have become citizens of God’s kingdom and have received forgiveness through Christ’s sacrifice. I thought the analogy was both cute and beautifully accurate.
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