Why did a church give me a free hot dog before a Gopher football game?
We've given away hundreds and hundreds of free hot dogs over the last couple years, with one main reason. Free hot dogs are a pretty good image about Jesus and what he was doing when he came to earth 2,000 years ago.
Jesus came to hang out with people who liked to have a good time. He didn't spend most of his time in stuffy religious institutions. In fact, Jesus said that sometimes religious institutions could damage people more than they helped. We think that Jesus would have been just as likely to hang out at tailgating party as at a church.
Sometimes people think that Jesus' message was mostly about judgment, but that isn't true at all. Jesus said specifically that he didn't come to condemn the world, but to save it, that he didn't come to be served, but actually to serve people.
Were he here today, he may have provided hot dogs to Gopher fans in Minneapolis. Several times, he provided meals for crowds of thousands of people, simply because he knew they were hungry.
Of course, Jesus didn't simply come to feed hungry people, and our church isn't mainly interested in just delivering free meat products. There was something larger going on with Jesus. But it still relates to that free hot dog we gave you. Let me tell you three ways Jesus' love is like a free hot dog.
1) Just like a free hot dog, Jesus' love is undeserved
I'm certain that you are a perfectly nice person, but you would have to admit, you really didn't deserve a free hot dog. In fact, that's why many people are quite surprised when we offer them some food free, with no strings attached.
Jesus was not only under no obligation to show us his love, in fact, he had many reasons not to. God made people to live in satisfying, trustful friendship with him, but we have rebelled against that purpose over and over. As a result, we really deserve nothing but anger and judgment from God. We have brought on ourselves all the suffering and evil that we see in the world: depression, divorce, abuse, starvation, war, corruption, hypocrisy, and all the other evils.
But in Jesus, God showed that he still loves us and wants to be friends again. In fact, Jesus' death was God's way of substituting his own son's suffering for the wrath we deserved. In the death of Christ, all of the evil and horror that humanity has brought in the world was decisively defeated, and a new day of hope and forgiveness dawned when Jesus, God's son, didn't stay dead, but was raised again.
2) Just like a free hot dog, Jesus' love is offered to anyone who wants it
Jesus isn't mainly looking for a bunch of stuffy religious types to be his followers. He wants anyone to come to him! He will begin to heal your wounds, to offer you exciting new challenges, and bring moments of profound beauty and joy into your life. And someday, Jesus' followers will live with him forever, experiencing fully what we have begun to taste here on earth.
Let's be clear, however: the life of following Jesus isn't easy or painless. In fact, it turns out that Jesus wants us to surrender our whole life to him. This doesn't mean living life like some kind of robot, mindlessly performing religious rituals. Rather, it means following the path of self-giving, self-forgetful, self-sacrificing love for others. This will often lead to suffering, as it did for Jesus, but it leads to the best kind of suffering: the redemptive suffering that leads to new life.
3) Just like a free hot dog, Jesus' love can be rejected
Every time we give away hot dogs, hundreds of people refuse them. There are lots of good reasons to- some don't believe they are really free, some people aren't hungry, and sometimes people are a little suspicious about taking food from strangers. We think this is perfectly understandable.
In a similar but much more important way, lots of people have heard about the love of Jesus but rejected it. Sometimes people think Jesus isn't trustworthy. Some think the Christian message is really one of hate and judgment. Some have seen Christians do awful things, and therefore aren't interested in following Jesus.
Maybe you've had one of those reasons for rejecting Jesus. Would you consider trying again? We'd love to have you come by our church sometime, and introduce you to him. You don't have to dress up, we promise you won't have to do anything embarrassing, and since it's a little early (9am or 11am on Sundays) we'll provide free coffee. There is a map and directions below.
It could be that you really aren't ready to take the risk of attending a church service, but maybe you'd just like to meet with a pastor and just chat about your questions about life and faith. Just shoot an email or a phone call to us as listed below, and we promise to have a judgment-free, condition-free chat with you wherever feels comfortable for you.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for letting us share a little piece of Jesus' love with you.