Cream-style Couch Support

Psalm 65:2-3
"We all arrive at your doorstep sooner or later, loaded with guilt, our sins too much for us—but you get rid of them once and for all."

To say that my mom's family was poor, would be like stating that there is air. You don't really need to think about it much. You just know. And to say that my grandfather was a mentally stable individual would be like ordering a cheeseburger—hold the cheese. My mom's household was a bit on the chaotic side. I'm thinking this qualifies as an understatement. However, even in the midst of the madness, there was love and even some modicum of responsibility.

Living from hand to mouth, their family often had to live with life "as is." They accepted each other "as is." They accepted their house "as is." They never questioned where the food came from, nor what it really was. They accepted it "as is." No questions asked. And when something broke, they either ignored it, tossed it, or fixed it with whatever was on hand.

As most families did, they owned a couch. Of course, the couch came to them "as is." And at some point in the tattered sofa's existence, some of its legs were broken. Now, you can't really ignore broken legs on a couch, otherwise your view of the television will be a little askew. And they couldn't really afford to buy a new couch, so tossing the old one was out of the question. So, my grandfather fixed the couch with whatever was on hand. Apparently, books wouldn't do the trick. I don't know, maybe they didn't have many, and the ones they had, were often in use. Nor could my grandfather find something from the garage to use to replace the missing legs. After searching through the garage and the house, my grandfather at some point made it to the kitchen. And opening up one of the cupboards, an angel's light shone down upon them: some cans of cream-style corn. Mmmm...you can't help but conjure forth an image of chunky yellow corn gunk. The 40 watt light bulb over my grandfather's head flickered on for a brief moment. An idea had come to him: why not use cans of cream-style corn to replace the broken legs of the couch? They're just slightly larger than the original legs, plus, they're cylindrical, just like the legs were.

Scarily enough, it almost seems logical. Almost.

My mom's family had six children. And if you know anything about children and couches, you know that couches are meant to be jumped, dove, and trampled upon. An interesting thing happens when you combine the forces of speed, mass, and gravity. What weighs fifty or sixty pounds at a stand still can turn into two, three, or more times that amount of weight. A little kid, to an unsuspecting couch, can suddenly weigh in at two or three hundred pounds.

Solid, wooden legs are meant to handle such pressure. However, hollow tin cans, filled with cream-style corn are not. Eventually, one of the cans would not be able to withstand the pressure and would explode, spewing forth chunky yellow corn gunk.

Now, don't you fret...because my grandfather certainly did not. All one needed to do was wipe up the cream-style corn, and replace the exploded can with a fresh one. A fleeting fix, yielding temporary results. And so the cycle would continue. Can explodes, couch tilts, clean up the mess, and get a new can. Over and over and over again. I wonder what the local grocer thought about all the cream-style corn he sold to my mom's family?

How often do we do the same thing? How often are our fixes fleeting? How often do our attempts at taking care of something once and for all turn into transitory tries, spewing forth the chunky yellow sin gunk of our lives?

We endeavor in vain to cover up the effects of sin in our lives, without ever fixing the real problem. We deny our sins. We hide them. We prop up our lives with temporary legs of support which inevitably fail under the strain of the weight of our sins.

A temporary fix ain't gonna cut it.

For millennia, humankind has temporarily taken care of sin by offering up token offerings to assuage our guilt. We pretend that our minor offenses never happened, and rationalize our major ones.

We provide fleeting fixes, yielding temporary results.

But not God. God doesn't like to sweep things under the proverbial rug of our lives. Because inevitably, the rug wears out and must be replaced, or worse yet, is accidentally pulled back to reveal the chunky yellow sin gunk we've hidden there. God's not into fleeting fixes.

No, God likes fixes of finality, yielding eternal results.

God offered His Son Jesus, once and for all as THE one and only fix which would act with finality. And when we get really honest with ourselves and admit that we've screwed up, and we let God know that yes, we've screwed up...and BIG TIME...and we say we're sorry, asking for God's forgiveness, we receive the fix of finality. No can's of cream-style corn temporarily supporting our lives...but Jesus, God's own Son, bearing the burden of our sins, and obliterating them entirely from existence, as if they'd never occurred.

I love how the songwriter, King David says it in today's text: "We all arrive at your doorstep sooner or later, loaded with guilt, our sins too much for us—but you get rid of them once and for all."

Did you hear that? Once and for all! That's permanence, my friends. A done deal. Fixed forever. When we get honest with ourselves and with God about our sins, and ask for forgiveness, receiving the gift of His Son, our sins are gone for good. The problem is fixed forever. And it's that easy, my friends. Because God accepts you "as is." Just say it: "God, I've screwed up. You know what I've done. And I'm tired of trying to fix the problem with my measly attempts at a solution. I'm sick of cleaning up the mess, again and again. Help me God. I'm so sorry. I know I don't deserve it...how could I after the things I've done? But I'd really like to receive the gift You offer in Your Son Jesus."

And that's it. A done deal. Fixed forever.

Our attempts at fixing are fleeting and futile. God got it right in one try through His Son Jesus. We can continue to live in the ridiculous cycle of propping up our lives with temporary solutions which will inevitably give way to the weight of our sins. Or, we can get honest and say that we're tired of the cycle and ask for God's help to break it.

What's it gonna be? Aren't you tired of cleaning up chunky yellow sin gunk? Aren't you tired of the mess it's making in your life? Yeah, me too. I'm going to cancel my standing order at the grocery store for cream-style corn and receive the gift of a permanent fix...once and for all.

By the way, I still can't help but to laugh whenever we eat cream-style corn.