FINDERS KEEPERS
You know how it goes:
“Finders keepers, losers weepers”
I heard it often enough as a child to know just how painful that little rhyme can be. I think the event that anchored those words forever in my mind was about marbles. My favorite cat’s eye was forgotten after recess. When I remembered, it was too late. Rushing back to the chalk circle on the pavement, I saw another boy using my cat’s eye as a shooter. “It’s mine. I forgot it”, I pleaded. Then I heard those awful words.
You might not realize just how Biblical this childhood excuse for robbery is. Jesus had a lot to say about marbles – and everything else that we count as precious in life. He said,
“For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it” (Matthew 16:25).
Jesus also said something about the second half of this rhyme except in Jesus’ words the losers do a bit more than weep. They also gnash their teeth.
“in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12)
But this is not a picture of rage or torment. It is an image of wailing loss and remorse that involves the entire body in a paroxysm of despair. These losers have lost quite a bit more than the cat’s eye. They have lost permanent fellowship with God in heaven.
Notice the exact wording in the statement in Matthew. It’s a little different than the parallel in Mark and Luke. In the other accounts the opposing ideas are the same pair reversed: save – lose, lose – save. But not in Matthew. In Matthew’s gospel Jesus draws our thoughts to two sets of opposites: save – lose, lose – find. While I am not inclined to argue technical issues on this difference, I do find it interesting that Matthew uses a different Greek word in the second pair. Apparently Matthew thought there was enough of a difference in Jesus’ Aramaic words to warrant this change. If we ask why we may discover something worth thinking about.
What is the difference between “save” and “find”? Well, something that you save indicates that it was in jeopardy of being lost but was rescued. If we save a life, it usually means that the life could have been lost but was pulled back from death in the nick of time. This implication applies even to those cases where the person dies but is somehow brought back to life. The intention is that the life is rescued from a permanent state of loss.
Isn’t this the implication behind the first group of terms (save-lose)? Jesus says, “Those who put all their effort into trying to save their own lives will actually end up losing the very lives they try to save.” Jesus clearly means that a life like this will be permanently lost. It won’t be rescued. It is gone for good.
Then Jesus says, “But if you are willing to lose your life for my sake, you will find it.” Now that doesn’t mean quite the same thing as “you will save it”. I would not say to a man who had drowned but was brought back to life that he was “found”, although obviously I would say that he was “saved”. The first pair makes it clear that we are talking about permanent loss. What is permanently lost is bought back to life. It is saved.
So why would Matthew depart from the term used by Mark and Luke? Why would he say, “find”. Finding implies that you never had it before or that you lost it completely and discovered it again. When we speak about possessions, we do use the term “find” for something that was once ours but was lost. But when we speak about living, we don’t say “find” when we mean “rescued from loss”. Life is not something that you misplace. You either have it or you don’t have it. If I “find” life, the implication is that I never had it before. It is this implication that becomes clear in Matthew’s account.
Jesus’ imagery is a bit stronger than the idea of rescuing a life that I was losing by changing my focus from self-serving to serving Him. This imagery in Matthew could imply that those who thought they were saving their own lives never really had life in the first place. They lost what they did not have, not because they were going about it the wrong way but because true life does not belong to anyone who seeks it in a self-serving manner. Jesus could be saying that you “find” life when you give up what you think is living for his sake. When you make the decision to stop self-striving and turn over to him what you think is life, you discover that you really never had life at all. Then you find life. And this is the great mystery of “finders-keepers”. You can only keep what you never had.
If we apply this thought to the introduction to John’s gospel, we see that true life exists only because of and in the Son. Those who are presently animated without a personal self-sacrifice to the Son are alive because of His gracious long-suffering, but they do not have life anymore than any believer has life. Life is not something that I own. It is a borrowed relation entirely dependent on God’s graciousness. Only those who give up the illusion of ownership realize that life was never theirs. They make the happy discovery that they now participate in real life because they have life in Him.
Losers really are weepers. They discover too late that what they thought they possessed turns out to be pseudo-zoe (false life). It looked like the real thing. It tasted like the real thing. It behaved like the real thing. But under the skin it was all imitation, fake, synthetic. When the real test came, it was shown to be nothing more than illusion. They never had life in the first place. Their eventual discovery of loss is simply the result of pulling back the veil of true existence. Without participation in His life, there is nothing to be saved.
(See Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24 and the parallel in John 12:25)
