The Deicer

A couple of years ago this month when my daughter Kelley and I flew to Denver to see our friend Caleb Jentsch after his skiing accident, I encountered a part of air travel I had never experienced before - the air plane deicer.  This is a picture of the one who did our plane before we came home.  I realized this was not a job I would ever want, being held up in the air in an open basket in sub-freezing temperatures spraying liquid onto an airplane as north winds howled around shaking the basket and blowing the wet spray back on you.  I watched this guy in admiration and prayed he did not get too cold to be careless and call our plane "good enough" when it might be packing a little too much ice weight.  Fortunately he took no shortcuts; he did his job well and we came home uneventfully.

These cold temperatures and ice that we have experienced reminded me of this man and his sacrifice.  I also thought about how to really help people get free from the baggage that accumulates in life that weighs us down and causes us to crash, it takes a sacrifice.  It is not easy work and there are never easy conditions for it.

When Jesus hung on the cross with the weight of our sin upon himself along with all the scorn and ridicule of those there blowing back in his face, it took a huge sacrifice.  He took no shortcuts.  He did a job that we could not do for ourselves and enabled us to get to our destination.  We are indebted to him.  The deicer did it for pay; Jesus did it out of love.  I now understand a little more about how much love based on how much the sacrifice was.

That is the core of what we believe and live by in Christ, he died to set us free.  May that always be our core.  We will talk more about this Sunday.

for the journey...

Tim