Taking Out The Trash

When my wife and I got married, we were able to move into a small little house. It was just right for us two kids. We soon realized, however, that we needed to have a discussion about the division of duties.

I was the bigger of the two of us and we decided that I would be responsible for taking out the trash. My wife didn’t like having trash inside our house. So every time the trash cans got full, I would take the trash out to the big garbage cans by the garage.

It seemed like we could make a lot of trash. Now that it was my duty to take out the trash, there was trash everywhere. I began to think that someone was bringing over their trash and putting it in our house. We had so much trash, I couldn’t believe it. You would have never thought that two people could amass the amount of trash we found in our house every week.

Then I found out that my wife didn’t like having trash in our large garbage cans outside by the garage. So I called the city soon after we moved into our little spot of heaven to find out if they had any trash service. The lady on the phone said they did. I asked what day the trash truck would come by our house. She told me and the day the trash truck was scheduled to come by our house, I hauled the large garbage cans out to the curb.

My wife was happy. That made me happy. And the trash was gone.

In the Israelite camp, the tribes’ tents were lined up nice and neat. But they didn’t like trash inside their camp. So they had a trash dump outside the gate. That is where they hauled everything they found offensive and undesirable. In addition to hauling the trash outside the camp, they also made anyone that was unclean live out there. They did not want to get contaminated by their discards and their filthy people. That was just like refuse.

Criminals also found they were not welcome in the camp. They were banished from living among the upright and politically correct.

Inside the camp, all was well. It was a place of safety. It was a great place to grow up. But, outside the camp was no place for a respectable person to be. It was dangerous. It was a place of rejection. It was a place of mockery and affliction.

The writer of Hebrews said that Jesus suffered outside the camp. He was treated like the trash and refuse. He was mocked. He was afflicted. And, he was executed. All outside the camp. Then the writer says we should go outside the camp to Jesus. We should leave our respectable, politically correct places and go outside the city gate to a place of danger, mockery, shame, and death. We need to die to self. That is always done outside the camp. The cross was outside the gate. Let us go to Jesus.