Checkout Line Awakening

Last night’s thunder and lightning have been replaced by this morning’s mighty rushing wind that is making the trees roar and setting the two ship’s bells in the backyard to dancing. Their joyful clanging is almost church-bell-like while reading an ancient Hebrew invitation on this first day of Holy Week: “I was glad when they said to me, ‘let us go to the house of the Lord!’” (Psalm 122:1) But their joyful clanging triggers another reminder: More than 2,000 years ago, Jesus showed up not just at synagogue but wherever His followers happened to be in their normal everyday life.

It's good to remember that He still loves to do that...

...Preoccupied with life and a bunch of to-dos on a rainy Good Friday morning not long ago, and wondering if anyone (including myself) had grasped the meaning of this day in history, something wonderfully jolting happened while standing, of all places, in the grocery store checkout line. It began with a rugged-looking workman in front of me who was carrying the surprising combination of a balloon presumably destined to be given to his child, and a pot of springtime for someone special in his life. But none of it was as surprising as his reply to the cheerful cashier's "Happy Friday, sir!"

"Thank you, and happy Good Friday to you...if you believe in all of that."

"Oh, I do! Happy Good Friday to you as well, sir."

Wow, people were actually talking Gospel things in public? In a grocery store, no less. And that was that, or so I thought. Until it was my turn to check out, and the cashier continued her train of thought as she scanned my items, then looking out the window at the dreary weather: "You know, I was just telling my husband this morning, every Good Friday, it seems to be like this. I don't think that's a coincidence, do you?"

Wait. Was this cashier opening the door to further conversation about the Good Friday I had nearly forgotten in all my preoccupation? And here? Where anyone and everyone could listen in, in a grocery store checkout line? How cool! And the door was opened, and the uplifting conversation went public. It’s easy to look for Jesus on Sunday mornings in “the house of the Lord” when God's people gather together. Easier still is to forget that...

... just as He burst forth from the tomb on that most glorious of mornings, Jesus still shows up in unlikely places by bursting in to our preoccupied everyday lives.

This was not the first time Jesus showed up at a grocery store checkout line. Something similar happened several years earlier during a different holiday....

Everyone was in a kind and festive mood, even though the line was long, and remarkably patient for day before Thanksgiving. The line seemed to be moving at a snail's pace—make that a frozen snail. Stores seem to love this. It's why they often display some of their most tempting goodies nearest the cash register, so that you check it all out while you're waiting for the snail to move. The marketing scheme worked. I scanned it all, because there was nothing else to do. But then looking up one of the shelves by the window, my eye caught a jolly figure standing outside the store with a red collection bucket and bell. 'Tis the season, after all, and I purposed to stop by on my way home. 

Fortunately, the people in front of me had only a couple of items, so I was out of the store faster than expected. As I headed to the bearded fellow with the red bucket and bell, I noticed a sign and easel had been set up next to the collection pot. Today was a special collection for a young local guy who had been seriously wounded while serving in Iraq. Instead of emptying my pocket of loose change as usual, without hesitation, I went to my billfold and pulled out dollar bills and stuffed them as best I could into the bucket. 

The jolly bearded gentleman handed out remembrance pins with a photo of the soldier on it, and as I started walking away, pinning the pin to my fleece, I suddenly—out of nowhere—felt a wave of tears trying to rise up. For sure, part of it was the emotion of being a dad, and thinking: "If it was my son, I'd give anything to make his world right again. Anything!" But then Divine revelation while, of all places, walking downtown: As I was making my way back to my car and asking God aloud about this strange reaction, almost immediately, I sensed Him speak in so many words: "This is how I feel about you, and for everyone you see around you right now, and in that grocery line. I have looked upon My kids, gravely wounded by sin, and I determined that I would give anything to make it right again. And I did.”

Right then and there, on a side street downtown, while walking and talking and doing the supposedly unimportant stuff of life, I celebrated Thanksgiving and Easter together in a moment that seemed far more significant and weighty than the goodness of what happens on any given Sunday morning....

... "You saved four dollars today. Thank you, and happy Easter!" And just as I was on that day several years ago, and thinking of the rugged workman with the balloon and his Good Friday sermon starter, I left the grocery store checkout line on that dreary Good Friday morning grateful all over again for the One who really matters in this life--no matter where I am.

And with it, renewed hope that no matter what kind of mess the world is in right now, God is still speaking to and through His kids today right in the middle of it all—in “the house of the Lord” on Sunday for sure, but perhaps most loudly and urgently in the streets, the daily grind, and in the grocery store checkout lines.

"This is my Father's world...He speaks to me everywhere."

—Hymn, by Maltbie D. Babcock