Access Denied - Access Granted

Checking into the flights availability for our Thanksgiving visit to my husband’s family, we realized our kids may miss several days of school.  Being a cooperative parent, supportive of educational process of our children, I wanted to quickly bounce this against the kids’ teachers.  Our son is in a new school now, and I wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. 

So, yesterday, I stopped by the office to ask.  The polite receptionist said that I would need to set up parent-teacher conference and those are generally not held the first couple of weeks of school. I'll probably have to wait. She suggested I call his grade office and talk to the 6^th grade administrator and the assistant principle because I would need to arrange the conference through them.  There are forms to be filled out, and each teacher… and so on and so forth.

I stood there stunned. I just wanted to ask a simple question and my child’s school suddenly felt like an unassailable fortress wrapped up in red tape. 

I understand their precautionary measures.  I understand the need for safety as well as protecting the teachers from frivolous interruptions. But, I couldn’t help feeling frustrated and nostalgic for the days when I could pop into Mr. B’s classroom, always warmly welcomed, always having his full attention for any of my questions and parental concerns.

As I reflected on this, it occurred to me that this is exactly what the Pharisees did to our relationship with God.  They built this intricate system of religious processes and procedures, the plethora of hoops one needs to jump through to get an audience with God. No wonder most people got lost in the maze and just gave up altogether.

When Jesus came, He removed all this red tape, and with His blood unrolled the red carpet to anyone who would come to Him. His blood -a our access. No need for special protocol. No forms to fill out. No waiting in line. No religious bureaucracy. No sacred gymnastics. No red tape. Just come...as you are.