TRASH PICK-UP

Yesterday it was finally nice enough for me to take a walk outside. I had previously seen some aluminum cans lying in the gutter near the subdivision entrance so I brought along a bag and picked them up, again. (A closet beer drinker in our neighborhood regularly uses this area for his or her trash dump). We try to recycle, so the cans go into the bin for later redemption.)

As I walked, happy at last to be enjoying the 40-some degree air after a very cold, snowy month, I noticed that, along with the beer cans, our pretty neighborhood was pretty sullied by a lot of debris that had accumulated over the winter. Funny, what snow can cover up! I hadn’t noticed the amount of accumulated human detritus that had been hiding under the frozen piles.

So, when it was time for a stroll today I grabbed a sturdy garbage bag and off I went. (No, I’m not bragging that I was a litter-lifter, a trash toiler or a garbage girl today – I live here; it’s my community, and therefore my responsibility to help out.) What a lot of yucky stuff was lying around: dirty plastic containers, liquor bottles, smooshed cigarette packs, an old bag of cashews (what a waste, in my cashew-loving opinion!), soggy, disintegrating newspapers and soaked cardboard boxes. And more beer cans. Who knew we lived in a garbage dump?

God did, that’s Who. When He made us, He made us to be able to make choices. Free will, it’s called. And the choices our first parents, Adam and Eve, made were wrong. Instead of choosing God’s perfect delight, they chose rubbish and the human race has been following along ever since. Like the snow that falls and covers over the trash, we then make all sorts of desperate attempts to cover over our personal trash, pretending our lies, our greed, our anger, our laziness, our envy, our sin - is not even there. But, as always happens, the cover-up melts away and leaves our garbage exposed, out in the open.

Good thing God knows just what to do with that stuff. He sent Jesus to take our junk, our debris, our filth. He doesn’t just pick it up and cart away to the landfill – He washes it away, makes it clean and new and just as if it were never even there. For real.

That’s why I love Easter. It’s an opportunity to ponder once again how much God loves me and what He did for me when He sent His Son for me, to pick me up and clean me up. Perfect redemption – radical recycling!

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” I John 1:9