[Um, what?] off!
On average, I struggle 3.5 days a week with the freedom of speech one driver displays on the back windshield of her car. First the left-hand side of her back window showcased a certain four-letter word. Now the same word is on the right-hand side of the rear window.
I say to myself, “Look away. Ignore this. Um. Hello. It’s just a word. It’s not such a big deal.”
For me, it is a big deal. More so, it’s painful because it jars the peace I know, live, and long to protect.
I get it. Language evolves. Since we live into the language we use, it changes. Read lines from a Shakespeare play and, whoa, you’ll see the evolution of word use. Read a newspaper article from 100 years ago and you’ll see the same thing.
Words and how we use them are on the move. Sassafras, for example. When is the last time you heard THAT word?
But this back window art speaks of a move that troubles me. It’s a worldview that says, “I don’t care.” “Stand back.” “I’m in this for me.” “Don’t step anywhere near me.” “The high power is me here. No one else.”
I want to speak to the high power here. Specifically, I want to talk about death.
Some of us really don’t care about an afterlife. We will be dead someday. No big deal. It’s just a place of nothingness, or, with a shrug, we think it doesn’t matter.
I think it matters a great deal, and this is an understatement.
I don’t know why people choose to walk away from a savior when saving is exactly what everyone of us needs. I am not representing a universal brand here, a pigeonhole religion, or a narrow view of any kind. I just have and hold a passion for people knowing love that is so good, so liberating, so affirming, so positive, and yes, so wonderful.
And this love comes with an afterlife—an eternal afterlife.
Oh. Wow. Now that can sound like something read on a decal.
Huh.
At the risk of sounding like the 2024 version of the 1960’s flower child, I have a worldview. I experience God, through Jesus, as the best.
The gospel writer John aligns. In the face of adversity, difficulty, division and abrasive “me first” window decals we all experience, he offers not a way out, but a way up. In John 3:14b he says the Son of Man must be lifted up.
Yes, lift up Jesus.
In context to this verse, John compares how Moses lifts a bronze snake to rescue his people from earthy harm and how Jesus, when lifted, saves us with eternal life.
Maybe this four-letter word is just a word to the driver I mention. Maybe she has this close and affirming relationship with our Savior. This is a close and affirming relationship we can all have because, as the quintessential message of Lent goes in John 3:16, Jesus died for the sins of the world. This includes what we put on our vehicles or spew out of our mouths on good and not so good days.
I know about a snake that isn’t bronze. This enemy wants to keep us from love, light, and eternal life.
That a part of this snake’s message may appear on window decals makes me want to lift our Savior even more. This is not retaliation to a world gone wrong, a get back at ‘em for a word or words I don’t like. This is lifting Jesus who was lifted onto a cross for our sins, including the sins of language and me first world views.
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