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| The Wooden Plates Were Marked With Another Version of the English Name: Steak-Sloth Slow-Coffee |
The main dining area was open on three sides. On the one wall, they had placed some rustic signs, some in Thai and some in English.
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| Rustic Signs on the Wall |
I was particularly drawn to one old sign for a garage. I'm not sure what one would have had to pay for, because the following services were listed as free:
- Beer & Ice
- Flats Fixed
- Oil Change
- Advice
Everybody likes a freebie. I think of all the advertising where they have the word, "Free!" in big letters to get your attention, but then you have to get close and read the fine print to find out if what they are offering is actually worth your effort. One sign I've noticed in various places around Kamalasai has the word, "free," (in Thai). The sign is posted by a well drilling outfit and goes onto say that if they don't find water when drilling for a well, you don't have to pay. It does not say whether they may refuse to drill a well it the local groundwater map does not show any groundwater. Or if you have to pay if they find water, but the water is too salty to use for anything. I'd be sure to ask about those things if I were to call them.
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| Well Drilling - No Charge if it Comes up Dry In other words, "nothing" is free |
At Christmas, we celebrate the ultimate freebie. God saw that we humans weren't good at much besides making things worse. Even when our intentions were good, we often ended up missing the mark. Our sins and karma kept catching up with us. So God decided we needed a Christmas present, long before the word Christmas was ever coined. This Christmas present had two aspects to it. First of all, God thought we could use a better idea of what he is like. Secondly, God wanted us to have a way to be free from the power of sin.
Matthew, quoting Isaiah 7:14, writes
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).
(Matthew 1:23 ESV)
God with us. If we want to know what God is like, we just have to look at the life of Jesus. Jesus said, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." (John 14:9 ESV)
About thirty years ago, someone came up with the idea of Christians wearing rubber bracelets inscribed with WWJD, meaning What Would Jesus Do. The idea was that if we wanted to know how to behave in any situation, we should look at the life of Jesus. This was actually a great idea, except that people were a bit selective in how they applied it. We looked at Jesus through our personal and cultural filters and made our decisions based on that. After all, we wouldn't want behaving like Jesus to cause us too much inconvenience or make us change our behavior too awful much.
But when Jesus came, it was a great inconvenience to Him. Here he was, a participant in creating the universe with God the Father, and now He has to put all that God-power aside for 30 years while he comes to earth as a newborn child and grows up until he is mature enough to be received as a teacher by human standards. And he had to deal with all the issues that come with having a human body. One of our famous Christmas carols talks about the baby Jesus that somehow "no crying he makes." Really! Somehow I don't quite believe that. After all, he was a normal baby that needed to nurse at his mother's breast. And while in one circumstance, Jesus quoted Old Testament scripture about man not living by bread alone, He did actually eat bread and fish. And I'm sure His mother made him eat his vegetables, too.
In coming to earth, Jesus was able to show us and teach us what God is like. He modeled for us the perfect way to live. He taught us about the Kingdom of God and what it takes to be a citizen of that Kingdom. But just as important was what he accomplished at the end of his earthly life, which leads us to the next point.
The second part of Christmas had to do with freedom from sin. The angel Gabriel, while explaining to Joseph what was going on with his fiancee, said to him,
She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
(Matthew 1:21 ESV)
Jesus put it this way, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." (John 8:34-36 ESV)
Pau mentions that this freedom means not being considered someone's slave, but instead, we are like their children. In this case, we are childen of God.
Therefore, you are no longer a slave but a son or daughter, and if you are his child, then you are also an heir through God.
(Galatians 4:7 CEB)
A bonus that come with this freedom from sin is another great freebie, eternal life. Paul puts it like this.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 6:23 ESV)
Jesus made this gift possible for us by offering up his life as a sacrifice for our sin and karma. Jesus endured a brutal death so that we might have an abundant life. "I came to give life," Jesus said, "life that is full and good." (John 10:10 ETRV)
So, this Christmas, if you want to give me a gift card for beer, tire repairs or oil change, that's great. But the best Christmas gift ever is eternal life in heave that we have because Jesus came to dwell with us on earth that first Christmas day. It's the ultimate freebie.
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