Come on Down!

There are some days where we wish we had just stayed in bed…for some of us…that would describe most weekdays.  I recall one given day, in late summer 1997, when I had slept through too many snooze cycles on my alarm clock and found myself running very late for work.  On this particular Monday morning, the boss was pulling me from my usual role in the cabinet shop to work in the field on a roofing job.  I jumped in my car and hit 4^th gear before I was out of the driveway.  By the time I arrived to the job site, the entire crew was already on the roof pulling shingles.  This was a bummer…because it meant that I was going to have to be the ground man.  I hated being the ground man.  That is the guy who has to keep picking up all of the shingles off of the ground and collecting nails from the client’s yard.  As I was making laps around the building with a large magnet to find nails, I came across a peculiarly long rusty one as it penetrated through the bottom of my shoe and into my foot.

When The Boss arrived on site and was looking for me to find out why I was late, he was told to follow the blood trail…which he did and found me sitting in the truck tending to my punctured sole.

“Why are you not on the roof?”

“I was trying to stop the bleeding…I was just about to apply a tourniquet.”

“Forget the blood and get all of these new shingles hauled up onto the roof…by hand.”

“Yes sir.”

I began carrying bundle after bundle, first setting them on the edge of the roof…then making trips from one end of the roof to the other, carrying multiple bundles at a time.

As I was repeating these trips, I found a sudden change to the monotony, as I began to plummet through the roof after stepping on a weak board.  If it had not been for my tool belt wrapping around my armpits and breaking my fall, I may have found myself interrupting the client’s Price is Right with my own “showcase.”  I could hear Bob Barker’s voice below my feet calling, “Come on Down!,” while I was mentally begging my coworkers to “Pull me on up! Pull me on up!”

“Hey what are you doing?” The foreman gruffly demanded.

“Nothing much…just falling through the roof.”

“Well…fix it…we don’t have time for this.”

At this point, I couldn’t wait for lunch…during which time I found myself getting hammered from behind by my coworker’s car as he rear-ended me at the stop sign.

“Hey, why did you stop here?”

“Because of the stop sign!”

“Well get going!”

“But you rear-ended me!”

“How would you like me to hammer you again…only on your head with my Estwing?”

…I went.

By the end of the day…I just wanted to quit…I wanted to give up…I wanted to go home and not return…but…I didn’t

My suffering was all pretty superficial...especially when I consider how Christ suffered.  I am reminded of how he took our sin and shame…my sin and shame…and he bore it on the cross.  He “endured” it. The weight that Jesus endured is a weight that I just cannot fathom…and yet he carried it…he bore it…he endured the weight.  Why?

Because of love.

He endured it because of love.

He didn’t quit…because God is love…and love doesn’t quit.  1 Corinthians 13 speaks of this incredible love.  Vs. 7, “Love does not give up…”

May we come to know that Jesus’ love for you, will never give up, and may our love become as enduring as the love of Christ.