Hosanna

by Pastor James Bell

Sometimes we refer to it as baggage, but it’s probably more accurate to call it trash. It’s the stuff you don’t want to think about or talk about. It’s that bad, yucky, embarrassing stuff that you carry with you on your journey through life.

One of the bizarre similarities between Gehenna, a smoky, smelly place which became a symbol of hell, and Golgotha, the hill upon which Jesus was crucified, was that they both became trash dumps. Gehenna was often referred to as the place where “the fire is not quenched”. It was filled with burning, rotting, useless debris. It came to represent the darkness and repulsion of sins not dealt with.

The cross provides a distinctly different kind of trash heap. Unlike Gehenna, Golgotha is where life experiences are dumped. This is where we cast all our care upon the Lord. We leave our burdens, our baggage, our trash at the foot of the cross. The biggest difference in Golgotha’s trash is that it gets recycled. After we lay it down and walk away free, God actually uses this trash for His higher purposes.

The very thought of this is at first reprehensible. Jesus came to destroy the work of the devil, not re-use it. But when you consider just what you left at the cross, you become cognizant of a higher purpose that God has in mind. The trash consists of our hurts, our wounds, even our trauma about the effects of sin (ours and the sins of others against us) upon our hearts and minds. The redemptive grace of God allows us to leave it all there and walk away free.

But then Jesus starts sifting through the trash. What was unredeemed gets redeemed. Jesus takes the hurt, the bitterness, the disappointment, even the fear that we laid at his feet and redeems it by his blood. He doesn’t redeem the sin, but it’s effect upon you. He redeems the process that led to the death of self and the birth of the new you. You are suddenly empowered with new strength as the word of your testimony causes you to overcome in every area of your life, as well as providing power for your outreach into others lives.

A type of this is found in the Old Testament when the recipe was given for the incense used on the golden altar inside the Holy Place. The fragrant offering of this incense enabled the priest to enter the Holy of Holies with the approval of the Most High. One of the ingredients was taken directly from the brazen altar where sacrifices for sin were made. God took some of the remains of the sacrificial sin offering and used them as a part of the transforming incense that proceeded ultimate intimacy between man and God.

Is that Jesus sifting through the trash of past crises in your life? I hope so! Will he use the redeemed “trash” from your past to launch new ministry into your current lifestyle? Yes! Then you will begin to understand something amazing: God doesn’t waste anything. He redeems everything. If you feel that you’ve wasted some of your life, make sure you leave it in the trash pile at the foot of the cross.

It might become the core of a brand new ministry God will birth in you!

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