The Thief

I was home for lunch, very typical of me.  I never have understood those who like to each at the office, those who choose not to get a breath of fresh air, to take their mind some place other than work. Following my normal routine, I had just about finished brushing my teeth before I headed out the door and back to the office.  As I scrubbed my teeth, I heard a knock on a door.  I could tell that it wasn’t our door but our neighbors.  We live in an apartment complex so this sound was not uncommon.  I thought nothing of it.

I rinsed out my mouth, spit in the sink and made my way to the door.  With the alarm set I stepped out into the hallway. 

There, stood two men.  One, with a profile that fit a typical residence of our complex, and the other, a man who clearly stood out.  As I exited the hallway, they did the same, giving a cordial “hello.”  Being on an upper floor, a person has the option of two different stairways, each on opposite sides of the building.  I went down one, and they went down the other.  My mind was focused on getting back to work so I failed to see anything odd about the situation. 

However, as I drove off my thoughts took me back to the run in with these two men.  They were clearly not there for any of my neighbors.  And though my neighbors varied in age and lifestyle, these men did not fit any of them.  Then, I remembered the stairs.  I went down the front; they went down the back.  My stairs led to the parking lot; their stairs led to nothing, just a strip of grass and a fence. 

Something was not right.

Knowing that my wife would be home soon that day, I immediately gave her a call, telling her the story.  She agreed that it was odd.

When she arrived at the apartment building, there were the two men.  This time they were leaving in their car with some items in hand. 

Later that day I got a call from my wife.  Our neighbor had been robbed.

I was filled with multiple feelings. 

Anger. 

Frustration. 

Fear for my wife. 

Thankful that no one was hurt.

It was not my stuff that was stolen, but I still felt a word that I had heard so many times but never really experienced.

Violated.           

That night, while driving to Home Depot to figure out a way to turn our house into Fort Knox, I had a thought.  How does God feel when He gets His stuff stolen?  Sure, the thought was out of nowhere, and with all the happenings of the day, contemplating such question that would have no way of bettering our situation may have been wasteful.  So I didn’t tell my wife that my mind was someplace other than dead bolts, alarms, and maybe even a strobe light, just for kicks.  So I just kept the thought to myself.

The Bible tells us that, one day, a very wealthy man came up to Jesus.  This wealthy man questioned Jesus as to what he must do to have eternal life.  The rich man had tried follow all of the Jewish laws and felt that he had done a good job but he obviously knew that something was missing.  Jesus told him that the only thing he lacked was to give away all of his wealth to the poor and follow Him.  The man left very troubled because he could not give up what he had accumulated. 

I wonder what Jesus’ face looked like as He watched the man lower his head in sadness, turn around, and walk away.  Would it have been sadness that I would see?  Would it be frustration?  Maybe a little anger.  Maybe it He had a glassed-over look as His mind was taken from the present and into the future of this man’s eternity.

That rich man was His.  He was Jesus’ from the start.  But something happened.  Something happened in between the man’s birth and that particular moment when He would look Jesus directly in the eye and walk away. 

He was stolen.

At some point during his life, this man chose wealth as his god.  This man was so allured by money, so entangled with the lies of earthly things, that he was able to deny Jesus to his face.  An evil opposition had taken this man away from the original owner and made him his own.

Anger.

Frustration.

Sadness.

Violated. 

At least this is how I would feel.

At the moment of birth, a baby is taken from the womb, wrapped in non-allergenic cloth, and placed into a spiritual battlefield.  This child’s existence will be subject to an ever-surrounding war with no ability to escape except through death, at which point loss or gain is determined.  Both sides, good and evil, want to gather every human that enters into this world.  One to give them an everlasting paradise; the other to recruit them into a never-ending torment. 

The tactics are many and very well thought out by the thief.  The human being has been carefully studied from the beginning.  Everyday he or she is cased for weaknesses so that at the moment of decision, the human will choose not to seek after its owner, but to simply walk away.

But unlike my neighbor, unlike most who are burglarized, Jesus will have vindication.  Most thieves go unknown, but not the one who steals from Jesus.  He is already known, and his fate is already determined.  So while the thief may have momentary pleasure, it will be just that, momentary.  In a blink of an eye, the thief will be caught, and the Owner will no longer be violated.   

From the beginning of time, He knew the outcome.  This we know.  But there is still the cross.  There is still such a yearning to be with us that He was willing to suffer like no human ever should.  And maybe this is the answer.  If we ask the question, “How does Jesus feel when we walk away?”, all we have to do is look to two wooden beams, put together to provide one of the most excruciating tortures the world has ever known.  Maybe the answer is a culmination of feelings that no other man has or ever will experience and can only be expressed with one definite article and one noun. 

How does Jesus feel? 

The cross.