Jesus & the Garbage Man

Every week, around the same time, the garbage truck comes past our place. It normally comes in the morning when I am reading scripture, praying and worshipping God. When he comes I normally stop what I am doing, and watch as the truck pulls up beside our bin on the kerb. The mechanical arm reaches out and grabs the bin. It lifts it up and dumps all our rubbish in the truck. Then it drives away. We never see our rubbish again.

As I sit and look at our bin, I see all of the rubbish our family needs to be rid of. I imagine what our house and our yard would be like without this regular opportunity to have it taken away. Decaying rubbish would pile up everywhere. We would eventually trip over it and be overcome by the stench it would generate. Life would not be pleasant. But it isn’t unpleasant, because every week the garbage man comes and takes it all away.

Strangely enough, the arrival and departure of the garbage truck has become part of my weekly devotional liturgy.

I think about the garbage and the mess in my life.

The rubbish which threatens to choke and putrefy my life and I think about the divine garbage man – Jesus. He is the garbage man for my soul.

When the garbage man comes for our family rubbish, I take the opportunity to give Jesus my rubbish, my sins, in confession and repentance. And he takes them away. My body and soul are clean again. I have a fresh start.

As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12