Come with me, to the dump.

It’s a place you might just as soon avoid.

Did I mention, this is your dump?  Your dumping ground.

It stinks.

Over there, that pile?  That’s all the trash you’ve cleaned out of all your cars.

Back next to us is all the recyclable stuff that you didn’t recycle.

The huge, smelly pile in distance?  Leftovers you never got around to eating.

That’s not all.  There are piles of frowns that you caused other people to make.  And a big heap of opportunities you’ve wasted.

And look — towering over most of the rest of the piles is a mountain of lies you’ve told.

It’s all here.  It’s all laid out.  Every sin you’ve ever committed.

Every time you let God or your neighbor down.  Or yourself.

What a mess.  And believe me, I’ve got a dump, too.  Overflowing with disobedience and shamefulness.

What can be done with all of this?  Have we scarred the face of the Earth forever? Is this wretched dump the real reflection of who we are?

Wait.  Over there, coming over the hill, is a man.  Jesus.  Carrying a great big trash bag.

And as he walks, he scoops up your mess.   Great big gobs of it.  Way more than should fit in a single bag, but still he stuffs.

Rapidly he makes his way through your dump, shoving down broken promises, misplaced anger, even the grossest, wettest sins that lay hidden deep underneath the rest.

Stumbling under the weight of it all, Jesus passes by, a distant look on his face.

“Father, forgive them”, he says, heading off to another poor soul’s dump. “They don’t know what they are doing”.

And then we’re left in this empty space, once covered by your sin.

Underneath it all, there appears to be a garden.  I assume that’s true of my dump, as well.

A garden.

Are we prepared?  Are we prepared to tend our gardens?

Have a Holy Week,

Mitch