Bungee Cord 5-14-12

Hello,

If the answer is Friday at 5:00 a.m., then what is the question?

The question has to be, “What is the only time that the dumpster company could send a truck to retrieve the construction dumpster that has been sitting in my yard for the last couple of months.”

At 5:00 a.m. I was sound asleep when I heard loud rumbling going on just outside my window and bright lights shining across my front lawn atop the secluded hill where we have built our house.  What, I wondered, was going on.  Had the military taken a wrong turn on some covert mission?  Had gold been discovered underneath my property and someone was trying to steal it away at night?

Still trying to shake the cobwebs loose in my brain, I carefully peaked out my window and quickly determined that it was only the dumpster company retrieving its dumpster….just the dumpster company retrieving its dumpster….WHAT!  After noticing that it was 5:00 in the morning, in the pitch darkness of the night, it occurred to me that my first two far-fetched conclusions were far more reasonable than what was actually happening.  The only reasonable reason that that huge, loud, rumbling truck was in my front yard dragging up a huge construction dumpster onto its frame was that it must….it must have been the only time that the dumpster company could have sent out a truck to pick up that dumpster that has been sitting in my yard for the last several months.

All sarcasm aside, the reason that that dumpster retrieving truck was in my front yard at 5:00 a.m. was probably due to what pickup schedule was most convenient for the company, or the person who dispatched the truck didn’t consider that most people do not start their days before 5:00, or if they did care, they didn’t stop to think that this dumpster was sitting right outside the bedroom window of the sleeping property owners.  Company convenience.  Lack of consideration.  Lack of care.

In contrast to the Dumpster Company, when God chose to send his Son into the world to gather up all the sin that was cluttering up and stinking up people’s lives, God’s actions were motivated quite differently.  Far from doing what was most convenient for God, God took a path that led to great personal sacrifice for God, the suffering and death of Jesus, his Son.  Far from blindly proceeding with lack of consideration, God took every need of all people into consideration, tackling every evil and roadblock that might stand in his way.  And far from moving with a lack of care, it was because of his complete care for all people (John 3:16) that drove him to act.

It was on a dark night that God arrived in the world in a Bethlehem manger.  It was on a dark Friday afternoon that God engaged sin and evil in a battle to the death.  And it was on a dark, pre-dawn morning, that God burst victoriously out of a human sealed tomb.  It was, as the Bible tells us, the right time, the ripe time, the best time, the only time for God to rumble into the world…and I, for one, am thankful that he did!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger