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He Caught a Grenade for You

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"I'm kinda the best right now. I don't know what else to say..."

Said Bruno Mars to Fuse.tv a little while back - and I’m sure he’s feeling that way right now as his #1 single Grenade is blowing up the charts week after week.

And then there’s the video as well - currently at 79,000,000 hits and climbing as more and more folks invest 4 minutes of their day to watch a well dressed and neatly groomed Bruno lug a piano through L.A. to his girlfriend’s house.  Along the way, he is spoken to by random people, has an encounter with a less than friendly looking gansta group, and ends up seeing the love of his life with another guy who obviously got there sooner because he didn’t pull a 500 pound object across a major US city.

Dejected and rejected, apparently the only course of action is to follow through with your promise and let a train ruin what could have been a perfect opportunity to go home and write a new version of ‘Grenade’:

I’d throw a grenade at ya (yeah yeah yeah)
Use my hand to throw a blade at ya (yeah yeah yeah)

Or something like that…

To me, this song and video raise many questions.

• What kind of neighborhood does his girlfriend live in where she’s in constant danger of being blown up, sliced, or demolished by a train?
• Why didn’t Bruno hire a piano moving company?  Or at least offer the ganstas some serious cash to help him pull it?
• Why didn’t he pick a different route home - say one that didn’t involve getting stuck on railroad tracks with a deadly choo choo?

And perhaps you noticed something else about the video that struck me the first time I viewed it.  It is the image of someone in deep love mingled with sorrow and pain, struggling to move a heavy object to a destination while He is ridiculed by the crowds and scorned by religious people. Remind you of someone else?

They took Jesus away. Carrying his cross, Jesus went out to the place called Skull Hill (the name in Hebrew is Golgotha), where they crucified him, and with him two others, one on each side, Jesus in the middle… (John 19:17)

Jesus had to carry the 125 pound crossbeam of the very instrument of His death nearly half a mile to where they would drive the nails through His hands and feet and let Him slowly suffocate in total agony.

And why?  In one word, it was love:

But he was pierced for our rebellion,
      crushed for our sins.
   He was beaten so we could be whole.
      He was whipped so we could be healed.
  All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
      We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
   Yet the Lord laid on him
      the sins of us all (Isaiah 53:5-6).

In other words, He took a grenade for us. He carried His cross to the place of His death where He carried the weight of our guilt so we could be set free from our sin and declared innocent of our shameful past.

If you are feeling like Bruno Mars in your search for a true love that will never change, you are not alone.  Since the beginning of time humanity has been pulling the weight of loneliness in our search for connection, and before time began God had a plan in place to solve our desperate problem.  Jesus caught the grenade of an eternity in hell for us so we could enter into a relationship with Him that will last forever.

And speaking of grenades, I can think of a good kind of explosion that should be a part of every Christian’s life:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16).

The word for “power” in this verse in Greek is dunamis - from which we get our word “dynamite.”  That’s what makes sharing our faith so easy!  If the gospel is like a grenade that blows open the prison doors and sets people free to live the amazing life God intended for them, then we need to realize that it doesn’t matter who pulls the pin on the grenade. The gospel’s power will do its work whether it’s presented by Billy Graham or a twelve-year girl.   

Trust me, there are quite a few Bruno Mars type folks who are walking lonely streets in hopes of finding true love, and we have the message that will turn their thoughts away from self-destruction to the reality that they are more valuable and cared for than they ever imagined.

Jesus caught a grenade for us, now are we willing to throw the gospel grenade for Him?

 

Grenade is a wildly popular video that brings up several serious and relevant issues that teens face.  The story that is portrayed is one of love, betrayal, and hopelessness, which are perfect tie-ins to the gospel. So get moving and talk to your friends about Jesus’ matchless love.

 

Father, the world is so full of people who are in desperate need of love and a relationship that will last forever.  Our hearts are truly restless until they find rest in you, so please use me this week to share your message of love and forgiveness through Jesus Christ.  In Jesus name, Amen

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matthew 11:29).

For help learning how to explain the message of the gospel to your friends, check out “What is the GOSPEL Journey Message”?