Sometimes I’ll see things that cause me to think about life in a different way. Occasionally I remember these inspiring images.
Here are a couple moments I had recently.
Have you ever been stuck somewhere with very little money and an insatiable zombie-like hunger that hijacks your brain so that your only intelligible thought is ‘MUST FEED Nowwwww!!!’ … Ever been there?
Whether this moment happens in a dorm room, or downtown, or (as in my recent experience) on a 12-hour ferry ride from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland, wherever you are, you will surprise yourself at your own shameless resourcefulness.
Scrounging for change in the black-hole-abyss of the nearby couch cushions, asking strangers for charity while trying to look as pitiful and infantile as possible, subjecting yourself to ridiculous humiliation because your terrible friends were clever enough to capitalize on your need for money and food by making you do embarrassing things to entertain them… We all have our favorite methods, but we all get there in the end: we are compelled by our hunger, and we desperately work towards getting what will satisfy.
How Awesome is that moment when you walk up to the Vending machine with exact change? You know that all that ‘hoop-jumping’ you’ve just endured will soon be worth it because your hunger will soon be neutralized by tasty, unhealthy treats from the magical drug dealer from CandyLand: Mr. Vending Machine. (seriously, he is like a drug dealer isn’t he? You always find him in some dimly lit back hallway, loitering near the arcade room).
But when hunger strikes, suddenly he is your favorite old friend.
This is where I get angry…
There are few things I hate more in life than the moment when I make my selection at the vending machine… and my treat…gets…stuck.
Oh, I hate, hate, Hate this! This boils my blood.
Let’s face it. The only reason any of us would even condescend to using the vending machine is because we are desperate for food. And then when our last resort option backfires on us… Gahhhhh! No amount of warning labels can prevent me from at least attempting to dislodge MY lazy Treat free from its stupid little perch.
So I went back to my seat on the ferry after this happened to me the other day… and I was grumpy. I was angry (I don’t really know who I was angry with… I suppose… the ‘Vending Machine Union’ would have to take the brunt of my wrath), but out of the depths of my misery came this startling glimpse of a divine perspective… A thought pierced my self-pity and replaced it with awestruck humility.
‘This must be what Jesus feels like when he sees people living in bondage…’
That shotty vending machine was transformed into eye-opening imagery regarding the nature of Christ’s redeeming work on the cross. I know the image is kinda bizarre, and perhaps seemingly irreverent to compare the cross to a vending machine, but in that moment… in the midst of my hunger and my disappointment, the similarities spoke to me in a big way.
Everything I experienced in my little adventure with the vending machine was merely a glimpse; a quiet remnant echo of his deafening battle cry; it was a miniscule comparison to the epic story of human history.
- I was hungry for food.
But God was hungry for intimacy.
My hunger pains for that food doesn’t even hold a candle to the heart-wrenching Longing that God had to be reunited with his people and his creation
- I went looking for money.
But God went looking for the lost, that one sheep, the sick, the oppressed, the vulnerable, the lonely, the hurting, the weak, the marginalized, the outcasts, the despised, the unwanted, unlovable, and the untouchables… But as I became humiliated in exchange for meager earthly wealth and riches… The King of glory traded up the immeasurable riches of heaven in exchange for the humiliation and poverty of entering into our messy existence.
- But this is my main point… this was my epiphany out in the quiet nighttime reflections amidst the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.
I felt frustrated because I didn’t get the candy bar that I paid for. I could see it hanging there, belonging to me rightfully yet still it was trapped there and I didn’t get to enjoy it.
How much more frustrating must it be for Christ to watch human beings living in bondage… He went through so much to get us. He suffered and endured so so much and still… Seriously? Even after all that, we’re not coming down from our stupid little perch? We live in our bondage; refusing to submit to the one who bought us by his blood. That must boil his blood. He must hate, hate, Hate how so many of us stay behind the glass. But instead of an ambiguous undirected hatred like mine (sorry ‘bout that Vending Machine Union) I’m sure that God’s anger just burns ferociously towards Satan for his life-stealing treachery. If we’re the candy, and Jesus is the fat kid who loves candy, then Satan is the sleazy manager who closes the snack shack and replaces it with a shotty vending machine. And not that Jesus (aka. Fat boy) can’t break the glass and snatch all the candy out… but he refuses to steal because he’s good. Even when he pays for all the candy and most of it stays where it shouldn’t… he won’t push the vending machine on the ground because that would put him in the wrong. I even go so far as to suggest that the annoying little sticker that demands no one even jostle or tip the machine is probably comparable to the nuisance of ‘free will’. He could have all the candy if he was willing to disregard that little sticker… but Jesus has more self-restraint than I do, he doesn’t even punch the glass… but boy, I bet he wants to.
All this is to say that My anger over being refused my rightfully paid treat at the vending machine got me thinking about how much Jesus has to be angry about when he sees person after person living in bondage to sin separated from him when he knows full well that he paid for them and they deserve intimate communion with him.
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