Hot Dogs at 2:00 A.M.

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eing the first house on the block to own the latest gadget is one of the best feelings in the world.  It gives the kids bragging rights and they waste no time in informing the other neighborhood children what has happened at their house.  No sooner is the seal on the box broken than little Johnny is telling Tommy all about the new arrival.  The one-sided conversation goes something like this: “Guess what we’ve got at our house?  My dad just bought one of those new thingamabobs that does whatchamacallit!  (You fill in the blanks)  It cost a lot of money too! (The most important point of the whole conversation)  I’ll bet you don’t have one! ” (This is the rubbing-salt-in-an-open-wound part of the conversation).

Yep, that’s pretty much the way it is and pretty much the way it was when my dad came home with one of the first microwave ovens.  Both my parents love gadgets (is it any wonder that places like Best Buy are my favorite haunts?) and when the microwave oven hit the scene, my mom said she’d like to have one.  I distinctly remember the day the oven was delivered.  It was huge and its box was even bigger.  That gave me more ammunition to use with the rest of the kids.  “Hey guys, guess what we’ve got at our house?  One of those new microwave ovens that cooks hot dogs in two seconds! (I admit I was a little over zealous but this was big news!!!) You should see the box it came in!  I’ll bet you don’t have one do you?” 

As time went on, I learned to be more discreet with my friends and with the sharing of family secrets!  The microwave, however, proved to be much better than I even imagined.  We could cook all kinds of things in a fraction of the time and anyone could use it.  That was the best part!  If I wanted a snack, I could just pop it in the microwave and voila, instant junk food!  This proved especially helpful on Friday and Saturday evenings when the cool thing to do was watch TV until two in the morning. Why everyone did this I don’t know, but it was cool!  I would visit the refrigerator, rummaging around for something to eat and I would find a hot dog.  I popped it in the microwave for 30 seconds or so and in no time at all I had a great snack to tie me over until breakfast!

What amazed me most was the change in the hot dog.  When I removed it from the refrigerator, it was cold and unappealing.  But when I placed it into the microwave, a wonderful change occurred.  What I took out of the microwave was not what I put in!  The hot dog had been thoroughly cooked.  It was sizzling, its color had changed, and it smelled wonderful.  I wasted no time.  I dug right in and satisfied my hunger.  What a difference a trip to the microwave made.  What was unappetizing just moments before was now a gourmet meal!

If you think about it, the Christian life is much the same way. Now, I don’t mean that all your problems will be solved or that all your prayer requests will be answered in a matter of seconds.  That won’t happen.  What will happen, however, is that a great change will take place.  After an encounter with Jesus Christ, things can never be the same again.  Just like that hot dog I took out of the fridge and placed into the microwave, we will not be the same after coming to Christ as we were before we came to him.  One of the best places to see this in the Scriptures is with the story of Lazarus, a man Jesus raised from the dead.

John 11:43-44 is the crux of this story, “When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go." You want to talk about instant change?  Lazarus entered the tomb a dead man. On top of all that he had been in the grave for four days.  But after a few seconds with Jesus, everything changed.  Life returned to Lazarus’ body and he walked out of that grave.  Notice the last sentence of this passage.  When we enter into a relationship with Jesus, the former things of life have to go.  Lazarus was no longer dead so the grave clothes and strips of linen had to be removed. He was freed from his former condition (death) in order to embrace the change Jesus brought to him (life).

This still happens today.  Outside of Christ we are cold and lifeless.  We exist but we do not live.  Nothing about life is appealing or even appetizing.  As long as we remain outside of Christ, as long as we refuse to accept him and his salvation, we are useless.  But once we accept him, once we turn our lives over to him, and once we let him change us from what we were to what he wants us to be, we can never be the same again.  Just like the people who witnessed Lazarus’ return to life and just like the kid whose parents have a new gadget; we can’t wait to tell everyone about it. 

One last thing about that microwave, it was ready to do its job at any moment of the day or night.  All I had to do was place whatever I wanted to eat inside.  Nice parallel isn’t it?  Jesus is ready all the time to change our lives and to help us when we need him—and we need him all the time!  But we have to make the choice to put ourselves inside so he can change us.  Isn’t it amazing what you can learn from hot dogs at 2:00 a.m.?  Have you used the microwave lately?