The Junk Brothers and Redemption

Apr 16, 2009Heal from the past

Today I watched The Junk Brothers on HGTV while eating my frosted wheat cereal. Here’s the premise of the show. The two brothers, Steve and Jim Kelley, forage neighborhoods under the cover of darkness, looking for junk that could be transformed into something useful, beautiful.

Today’s show they found a pair of old wooden snow skis. Then, they take what they’ve found and create furniture (beautiful furniture, actually) using the castoff. In today’s episode, they created a curio cabinet, shaped like the top end of a wooden boat, complete with mirrored back, glass shelves, a door, and an upper inside light. The skis framed the whole thing.

The coolest part of the show comes when they place the new piece of furniture on the cast-off home’s doorstep, ring the bell, then leave. A hidden camera picks up the people chatting, marveling, and wondering how something they’d thrown away has become something beautiful.

Isn’t that the perfect picture of redemption? Jesus is The Junk Brother (Savior) who takes our castoffs, creates something beautiful with what we perceive to be unnecessary in our heart, and reconfigures it into beauty. Then He dares to surprise a dying world with the beauty He’s wrought in us.

All of this reminds me of this verse: “To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.”—Isaiah 61:3.

And this one from 1 Corinthians 1:27-30: “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.

Amen, folks! God takes our junk and rejuvenates it to treasure! Halleluia!

 

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