I was drinking a percolated coffee on a farm. It was harvest time. Outside you could hear the workers gathering the harvest and loading the trucks. I was fairly tired from recording the Sunday sermon.
Suddenly a man came in. I recognised him from somewhere, but couldn’t make the connection. Then I remembered I had attended his wedding, a sumptuous affair. But the man standing before me was quite different from the man at the wedding.
Softly he started describing his life to me. Many times, he woke up in the morning hungover with no idea how he had ended up in bed. He didn’t even know in whose bed he opened his eyes. He couldn’t remember how many Tequilas he had before switching off or which woman he accompanied to bed.
He just needed a beer to get him in the right place to get him to the evening again.
He said money wasn’t ever a problem. The big casinos bought him plane tickets to get there and then everything was on the house. As long as he continued to use his shiny gold, purple and black cards at the tables.
And when the money was done, he got on the plane again, bought a few things and the cash register jangled in his bank account. He drove the most expensive cars, and when alcohol no longer had a strong enough kick, he turned to the white lines.
Bigger, better, more beautiful, harder and then more.
But it wasn’t enough. He even lost a few women along the way. The psychologist told his parents to forget they ever had a son. There is no medication…
But now he is different. He smiles all the time. He looks differently at you. He talks differently.
He drives an ordinary car and says that money is no longer important. He only wants to get to know God more and more. Three to four hours a day he only wants to drink in knowledge about God, because you see, he bumped into God.
The living, almighty God touched him and pulled him away from self-destruction by believing in the plastic dreams of the world. Even the big farmer at the table lowered his head and murmured: “A miracle”.
And before my eyes I see the biggest impact of this verse in practice: 26… But instead, he sacrificed himself once and for all, summing up all the other sacrifices in this sacrifice of himself, the final solution of sin.
Scripture
Hebrews 9:23-28
Reflection
Where is sin still stuck in your life?
Is Jesus’ forgiveness sufficient for it?
What now?
Prayer
Jesus, what an enormous act you committed on the cross! To take the punishment for all my sin. It’s too big for me to understand completely, but I take it again and again, and live it. Amen.