We all have parents and grandparents, aunts or uncles, people who have come before us. When these treasured people come to the end of their lives, we have to deal with the things they’ve collected over the years.
What do we find? Well-worn furniture, clothes from decades past, and keepsakes, those small items that reminded them of the years of their youth.
We sort and assign, sell and donate. It all has to be gone. When we finally reach that old trunk in the attic, we’re tired, and we see it as a trunk of junk. Toss it, we say, and no one will miss what’s inside.
The Samaritans of Jesus’ day felt the same way.
An old argument had raged between the Jews and the Samaritans concerning how to interpret the law. One group believed one way, the other side took offense, and the issue drove them apart like a wedge into wood.
To the Samaritans, Jesus and his story of redemption for the Jews was junk in the trunk. They had waded through furniture, old clothes, and too many keepsakes to count. By the time Jesus came along, they thought, toss it, and no one will miss what’s inside.
Luke 9:52-53 tells of Jesus on the way to Jerusalem. He sent his disciples into a Samaritan village to get lodging for one night. When the people of the village learned he did not intend to stay for an extended time, all the old arguments, from furniture removal to outdated clothes, and even the dusty knickknacks from years before rose up again.
Jesus became no more than an old trunk filled with the junk of all the tired arguments between the Jews and the Samaritans, and they wanted to toss him away.
A trunk of junk. Toss it aside, and no one will miss what’s inside.
However, Jesus was no trunk of junk. If they had opened him to look inside, they would have seen that he came for all men, to give them life, and to redeem them from their sins.
In Luke 9:54-56 James and John asked Jesus in their mistaken zeal, “Will you have us call down fire from heaven to burn them up as Elijah did?”
He replied, “I came to save men’s lives, not destroy them.”
Even in the moment of his rejection, Jesus’ heart remained tender toward mankind.
If the Samaritans of that village had only bothered to open the trunk, they would have seen the gold and diamonds inside. They let their weariness get in the way, and in that moment, they tossed aside the most valuable thing that had ever come their way.
When we grow tired, the one place we must turn is to Jesus. He is our only refreshing in our time of need.
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