Recently I saw a side of the kitchen backsplash – the inside – that I hope never to see again.
After about 30 years of service, a toggle switch failed – the switch that controls power to the in-sink garbage disposer. A relatively simple fix, even for a home-improvement doofus like me. Unless, of course, at some point during those 30 years of service, the switch (and its mate) had been entombed behind a stone-tile switch plate.
Add “grout” to the equation, and all of a sudden a 15-minute “fix-it” task turns into an all-day ordeal. Fortunately, my Sweetie and I picked this weekend to tackle the job … the very weekend when we hear these instructive words about home improvement projects from St. Paul:
Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.
Don’t know about you, but whenever I break out the toolbox, I very much need just such a reminder – to “live in peace” and “encourage one another.” I tend to get frustrated with failure, you see … and that feeling seems to inform nearly every repair job I attempt.
So it was in this case, too. Removing the grout proved quite vexing: I began to doubt that we’d ever succeed. Which is right about when my Sweetie reminded me to “live in peace.” (At least I think that’s what she said. Or maybe it was more like, “Please stop using the Lord’s name in vain.”)
Long story short, eventually we got the stone tile removed and the toggle switches replaced and the worrisome grout restored. And at some point along the way, I took a moment to contemplate a side of the kitchen wall that I rarely get to see – the aforementioned “inside.”
It kinda turned into a “Holy Trinity” moment for me. That is, after all, the feast we celebrate as church today – the great mystery of the Godhead, when we are given something of a scriptural peek into God’s “insides,” Father Son and Spirit. Here’s how Jesus explains things to Nicodemus, the esteemed teacher of Israel:
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.
I’m not entirely sure how that’s all supposed to work – but I still find it quite consoling. Even if at times we don’t notice, God is here, amongst us … desiring nothing less than to save us.
In Christ, God’s love for us is wonderfully exposed. Much like wiring inside a wall.
Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.
IHS
With Us Still 