Everything he did was unorthodox. Everything about him was a paradox. He was uniquely unique and seemed to have no problem with it, whatsoever. He marched to the beat of his own drum and didn’t seem to mind the ridicule, the stares, and the controversy that surrounded him everywhere he went. I could almost see him chuckling as he walked away from the ever head-scratching Pharisees. Nothing he ever did made any sense to them. He healed blind people with a dab of mud made out of his own spit. He had Sunday night dinners with the IRS. He fed an entire football stadium with a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread. He stood silent as he faced a death sentence. He chose to die.
In my own life I see distant traces of eccentricity. There are things about me that cause people to stop and shake their heads. The difference is that I’m not healing people or feeding the hungry or making friends with the un-populars. The things I find myself doing are not brag-worthy by any standards. In fact, if I had a giant, imaginary eraser the thing would be worn down to the nub by now. Even as a Christian, I find myself making poor choices. Regret is often an itchy, tight fitting scarf that wraps itself around my throat, making it impossible to breathe at times. There are days when I am constantly pulling at it, writhing in a sweaty heap to remove the unwanted reminder of my own humanness. I am vastly imperfect and I am constantly aware.
Everything I’ve ever done is laid out in one giant cyber melting pot of waste. It’s a massive flea market where everyone helps themselves to everyone else’s stuff. I can’t make my bad choices or my stupid mistakes go away. There are there and they always will be. All I can do is keep moving forward. With broom in hand, I clear a tidy space to walk and keep going, one foot in front of the other, day by day by day. In the background I hear his gentle voice. “Your sins are forgiven. Go and sin no more.”
Today is a new day and I am a new creature. I stretch my arms, wriggle out of my cocoon and soar above the clouds, over the barren wasteland of my flubs and failures, and into my future. My scarf is looser around the neck today and not quite so itchy. I pull at it anyway, to remind myself that it’s ok to take it off. I am allowed to fly in His freedom because everything he did was unorthodox.
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