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by Bob Bekins  October 2016

Walking my grandson in his stroller I was pleased to see the big trash truck heading down the street toward us. We boys love big noisy machines, and I knew the little one would be thrilled to watch. Finally the truck got to us. Its two mechanical arms reached out and with just enough force gathered the trash can next to us and dumped the garbage into the truck bay.   From where we stood, it would gather, gather and then eventually head off to the dump. There the useless filth would be ejected and plowed under to be remembered no more. How like our lives is that process.

God sends his Son to embrace us. He is strong, but tender, using just enough of His incredible power to gather us in his arms. The experience of knowing His contact in our life lifts us up, and we release the corruption of our past and sometimes of our present. Occasionally we cling to one sin or another, and He has to give us a firm aggressive shake to dislodge it from our grasp.

He takes away all our rubbish and leaves us as empty vessels with new promise. We can continue to put more muck in, or we can get cleaned up.   Empty of all that is bad for us, the possibility of good flowing in is greatly increased.

Jesus the Messiah takes all our corruption from before and covers it over with His sacrifice to be forgotten forever. Just like the truck’s weekly visit, He will be back again to check on us. As we get more like Him, there is less heaviness to carry away. On that last trip, when the vessel of our life is battered, shredded, and well used, we get recycled to become new in Him in a new world.