In 1966 the St. Louis Cardinals built a new ballpark and named it Busch Memorial Stadium. There is a story that the owner of the Cardinals, August Busch, wanted to name it Budweiser Stadium, but the city officials would not allow him to name it after a beer. Frustrated by their answer, he named it Busch Memorial Stadium after their family name. But shortly after the new stadium was opened, August Busch introduced anew beer to the market: Busch beer. I guess he got his way!
When the new Busch Stadium was built in 2006 a similar conflict happened. The city had an ordinance that advertisement signs were not allowed on the Southside of the new stadium Facing the situation of losing millions of dollars in advertising costs, the designers of the stadium got around the ordinance by making a huge sign that faced the outside of the stadium, but was offset by one foot so it was located inside the building framework. Technically, it was not “on” the outside of the building. (story from Getting to Know Jesus by Paul Schult)
These two stories remind us of our human nature, how easily we can find away around any rule, and how much we hate being told what we can and cannot do.
Which brings us to your week long Lenten devotional study this past week on the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are God’s values. He takes them seriously. God is holy and perfect, and so are His rules. When kept, they create harmony and peace between us and our Creator and our neighbor.
Like August Busch, we too often find ourselves trying to find a way around God’s Ten Rules. The Apostle Paul wrote one verse in Romans 6 that contains both the consequences of breaking the Ten rules and also a word of Grace and Mercy.
“The wage of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.”