Even before the dawn one Friday morning I noticed a young man, handsome and strong, walking the alleys of our City. He was pulling an old cart filled with clothes both bright and new, and he was calling in a clear, tenor voice: 'rags!' Ah, the air was foul and the first light filthy to be crossed by such sweet music.
'Rags! New rags for old! I take your tired rags! Rags!'
Now, this is a wonder,' I thought to myself, for the man stood 6 foot 4, and his arms were like tree limbs, hard and muscular, and his eyes flashed intelligence. Could he find no better job than this, to be a ragman in the inner city?
Soon the Ragman saw a woman sitting on her back porch. She was sobbing into a handkerchief, sighing, and shedding a thousand tears. Her knees and elbows made a sad X. Her shoulders shook. Her heart was breaking.
The Ragman stopped his cart. Quietly, he walked to the woman, stepping round tin cans, dead toys, and Pampers.
'Give me your rag,' he said gently, 'and I'll give you another.'
He slipped the handkerchief from her eyes. She looked up, and he laid across her palm a linen cloth so clean and new that it shined. she blinked from the gift to the giver.
Then, as he began to pull his cart again, the Ragman did a strange thing: he put her stained handkerchief to his own face; and then he began to weep, to sob as grievously as she had don, his shoulders shaking. yet she was left without a tear.
'this is a wonder,' I breathed to myself, and I followed the sobbing Ragman like a child who cannot turn away from mystery.
'Rags! Rags! New rags for old!'
In a little while, when the sky showed grey behind the rooftops and I could see the shredded curtains hanging out black windows, the Ragman came upon a girl whose head was wrapped in a bandage, whose eyes were empty. Blood soaked her bandage. A single line of blood ran down her cheek.
Now the tall Ragman looked upon this child with pity, and he drew a lovely yellow bonnet from his cart.
'Give me your rag,' he said, tracing his own line on her cheek, 'and I'll give you mine.'
The child could only gaze at him while he loosened the bandage, removed it, and tied it to his own head. The bonnet he set on hers. And I gasped at what I saw: for with the bandage went the wound! Against his brow it ran darker, more substantial blood--his own.
'Rags! Rags! I take old rags!' cried the sobbing, bleeding, strong, intelligent Ragman.
The sun hurt both the sky, now, and my eyes; the Ragman seemed more and more in a hurry.
'Are you going to work?' he asked a man who leaned against a telephone pole. The man shook his head. The Ragman pressed him: Do you have a job?
'Are you crazy?' sneered the other. He pulled away from the pole, revealing the right sleeve of his jacket--flat, the cuff stuffed into the pocket. He had no arm.
'So,' said the Ragman. 'Give me your jacket, and I'll give you mine.'
Such quiet authority in his voice!
The one-armed man took off his jacket. So did the Ragman--and I trembled at what I saw: for the Ragman's arm stayed in its sleeve, and when the other put it on he had two good arms, thick as tree limbs; but the Ragman had only one.
'Go to work,' he said.
After that he found a drunk, lying unconscious beneath an army blanket, an old man, hunched, wizened, and sick. He took that blanket and wrapped it round himself, but for the drunk he left new clothes.
And now I had to run to keep up with the Ragman. Though eh was weeping uncontrollably, and bleeding freely at the forehead, pulling his cart with one arm, stumbling for drunkenness, falling again and again, exhausted, old, old, and sick, yet he want at terrible speed. On spider's legs he skittered through the alleys of the City, this mile and the next, until he came to its limits, and then he rushed beyond.
I wept to see the change in this man. I hurt to see his sorrow. And yet I needed to see where he was going in such haste, perhaps to know what drove him so.
The little old Ragman--he came to a landfill. He came to the garbage pits. And then I wanted to help him in what he did, but I hung back, hiding. he climbed a hill. With tormented labor he cleared a little space on that hill. Then he sighed. He lay down. He pillowed his head on a handkerchief and a jacket. He covered his bones with an army blanket. And he died.
Oh, how I cried to witness that death! I slumped in a junked car and wailed and mourned as one who has no hope--because I had come to love the Ragman. Every other face had faded in the wonder of this man, and I cherished him; but he died. I sobbed myself to sleep.
I did not know--how could I know?--that I slept through Friday night and Saturday and its night too.
But then on Sunday morning, I was wakened by a violence.
Light--pure, hard, demanding light--slammed against my sour face, and I blinked, and I looked, and I saw the last and first wonder of all. There was the Ragman, folding the blanket most carefully, a scar on his forehead, but alive! And, besides that, healthy! There was no sign of sorrow nor of age, and all the rags that he had gathered shined for cleanliness.
Well, then I lowered my head and trembling for all that I had seen, I myself walked up to the Ragman. I told him my name with shame, for I was a sorry figure next to him. Then I took off all my clothes in that place, and I said to him with dear yearning in my voice: 'Dress me.'
He dressed me. My Lord, he put new rags on me, and I am a wonder beside him. The Ragman, the Ragman, the Christ!"
May we never get over the wonder of what Christ did for us! What a picture of our Savior taking our filthy rags of pride and selfishness and greed and gossip and hatred and envy and giving us His robes of shining perfect righteousness! Again, I think back to that first verse in 2 Peter 1: 1b "To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours." We did nothing to earn it. We could never ever earn it or deserve it in any way whatsoever. But He who had no sin, out of His love for each of us, gave us His righteousness freely so we might have eternal life.
And not only do we have His righteousness, but we have the Holy Spirit that enables us to live the supernatural abundant life. Just as the Ragman bid the healed one-armed man, "Go to work," so He bids us to do likewise. He lives within us and enables us to love when we don't feel like it or enjoy peace in the midst of strife and stress or choose joy when circumstances are hard or forgive when we have been wronged or trust when we want to worry. We can "go to work" because He is doing the work through us, if we will choose to daily yield in obedience to Him.
Lord, thank You for the priceless gift of Your righteousness. Thank You for Your Holy Spirit that enables me to live the abundant life You long for me to experience. Thank You for your forgiveness and mercy when I fall so short again and again. And thank You for the grace that allows me to get up and try again. The Ragman, the Ragman, the Christ! To You alone be all the glory!
No comments:
Post a Comment