The Best Mulligan of All

I love getting mulligans when I golf!


For the non-golfer, a mulligan is a do-over. When you hit a bad shot, instead of suffering the consequences of your poor performance, you get to try again. When taking a mulligan you don’t get what you deserve. I am so grateful for my mulligans that I usually buy my golf partner a beverage afterward.

I Need Two Mulligans on This Hole

We all know the stories of Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel. These are two stories of disobedience.  From the very start of the human race, man’s performance was very poor. We deserved death. Yet, God gave us a mulligan, that is, another chance to obey God’s Word.


Seth was born to Adam and Eve. Seth’s descendants were told not to marry members of the Cain side of the family, but they did. The human race became corrupt again. God sent the flood as judgment. Yet he gave us another mulligan.


Noah was saved to re-establish the human race. For a while humans more or less followed God. However, the story of the Tower of Babel tells us that man was building towers (ziggurats) with the intent of reaching the heavens where pagan gods lived. Man once again disobeyed God by putting other gods before him.


The Tower was destroyed and mankind was scattered across the earth. Nonetheless, God gave the human race another mulligan.


God chose Abraham and created his chosen people, the Israelites, from Abraham’s descendants.


For a while Israel flourished. Under King David it was the strongest nation in the region, more powerful than Egypt.  The passage of time, however, saw Israel’s leaders displaying less faith, with the nation becoming weaker and more corrupt.


Today’s reading is Isaiah 5:1-7. Isaiah describes the sorry state of corrupt Israel and predicts its destruction. Isaiah also tells us that God is going to give the human race another mulligan, and this one will come from the tribe of Judah.


Jesus is the mulligan that Isaiah predicted. He is the mulligan to end all mulligans. I get eternal life, although I deserve just the opposite.


This mulligan makes me want to do Jesus’ work.


So I Pray, Give and Go! (It is better than a beverage!)