You Break It, You Buy It

When I was little, mom would tell me at least 1,249 times not to touch anything in the store and that was just before we got into the store. She would tell me another 547 times while in the store not to “touch the pretties” and “keep your hands to yourself” because all of these things are “breakable.” If you break something you must buy it. For whatever reason unknown to my mom I did not want to stay by her side, nor did I want to stay in her sight and even more so, I did not want to refrain from touching the pretties! At one point as I was wondering away looking at all the pretties, I saw the most beautiful crystal angel and I picked her up and held her in my hand. I wanted to find my mom and show her just how beautiful this angel was and maybe even beg her to buy it. As I found mom and was walking up to her with this prized possession, I am sure my mom's mommy brain immediately was thinking, must retrieve the angel. breakable. must retrieve the angel. In her feeble attempt to retrieve the angel from me I interpreted this as “play time!” Crystal angels don’t bounce. I found out crystal angels, when thrown onto the floor, just break. Now, if mom were a cartoon character her face would have turned bright red (I think it actually did) and steam would have come blowing out of her ears. As I watched my very upset mom “You break it, you buy it,” was all I could hear in my head, over and over again. In embarrassment and anger mom collected the pieces of the angel (and her pride) and approached the cash register. She purchased broken pieces of glass. She paid valuable money for something that immediately lost its value the moment it fell to the floor. I in turn, true to her word had to pay her back with my allowance money. I learned a valuable lesson that day as to a six yr. old child, crystal angels take a lot of allowance money.

Take a look around you. Do you see something broken? I see brokenness everywhere. I see it in disease and sickness. I see it in the hate and the hurting. I see it in the relationship between family members and friends. I see it in the churches. I see it in the children I teach, and then, I see it in me. Everything is broken. Everything is tainted. Just as the angel fell and broke, we too are fallen and broken beings. Our world is a fallen and broken world. Lacking value and ability in ourselves we lie helpless on the ground. The old mantra, “you break it, you buy it” won’t solve this problem. Adam couldn’t “buy” his way out of brokenness. Even faithful and righteous Abraham couldn’t buy his way out of brokenness. David was a man after God’s own heart and yet he too lacked and could not pay the price. So what are we to do? We have no currency that will pay the price for the brokenness that man has incurred on all of creation. You see, we are the broken pieces lying on the ground and we can do nothing. However, Christ has come along and picked us up in our broken state. He carried our brokenness on his back as he carried the cross to Calvary. His blood that poured from his body is the only currency that can buy our broken selves.

I still have that broken angel. It’s not on display, but every now and then when I’m cleaning off a shelf or cleaning out a closet I come across that angel and I remember that afternoon. I had intentions of gluing it back together, but I never got around to it and it wouldn’t look the same anyway. Not only does Christ gather and pay for the broken, he unlike me is fixing the broken and we will be completely restored when he comes back and we will live with him forever.  He didn’t break it, but he bought it. He bought it because we couldn’t.