Delivering Syrup, Butter and Chocolate- Maloree's breakfast of choice
I think I’ve figured out a secret. One that I’ll risk sharing. It has to do with pancakes, fries and chicken nuggets. Three things that are rarely eaten alone. Not by yourself alone, but plain and dry alone.
Pancakes are a prime example. Stack them tall with butter layered between each one and then pour syrup on them until they are an island in the middle of your plate. Each bite soaked with creamy butter and sweet maple syrup. We put up with sticky fingers and faces simply because people will make fun of you for eating sticks of butter or putting a straw in the bottle of syrup to wash down your breakfast.
Fries. How can something so good be so bad? Waffle fries from Chick-fil-a. No other fry can handle that amount of ketchup and still have the heavenly flavor of salt. Salt had great monetary value in ancient times. Probably because the ancients wouldn’t eat their fries without it. Just a hunch. Next time your eating fries try one plain. No salt or ketchup. Can’t be done. But even worse, try eating those little packets of ketchup by themselves. It can be done, but the people behind the counter put your picture by the door and ask you not to return.
I’m really risking it now. Chicken nuggets. From your favorite place. What do you dip them in? Ranch? Polynesian sauce? Honey? BBQ Sauce? Sweet & Sour? The list is endless. Have you ever ordered the chicken only to be told they were out of YOUR sauce? Changed the order didn’t you! We have to have a way to get our sauce.
All these foods, and many others, are vehicles. They transport what we really want, the ketchup, salt, syrup, sweetness, bitterness, hot and spicy and other perfectly seasoned things, across our impeccably trained sensors. Our appetites have been trained to crave these things. And we want our appetites to be satisfied!
The Ark, Noah’s boat, that is, was a vehicle in a similar manner to those mentioned above. But the Ark delivered that which God had seasoned, a righteous man and unique creatures, onto a freshly washed creation. A creation that still needed that seasoning- righteousness that Noah had experienced and gave witness to.
The basket of Moses was a vehicle to deliver a “beautiful” baby boy. (In the Hebrew, the word for basket is the same as the word for Noah’s Ark. Only used in these two places.) God seasoned a deliverer and when the time was right, brought a people out of bondage. They too were seasoned. Wandering and learning to trust in the God who provided for you for decades seasons a person.
We’ve been seasoned too. And we are vehicles of God’s grace. Salt to the earth. Light to the world. And you know what? By myself, I’m pretty bad tasting. You wouldn’t want to be around me if what God has put in me was removed. Bland doesn’t cover it. I’d be rotten. But I’ve been bought with a price. Jesus Christ paid that for us!
Jesus is the ultimate vehicle. Through His passion- His Life, Death, and Resurrection, we receive grace. We have been delivered from death into life. I pray that this Easter, and every day for that matter, we will think about what we’ve been given, and just how good it tastes. We’ve been given life. That is sweet.
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