What happens to garbage?

Today's random thought is probably a bit more random than most, even for me.

As we were headed to school today, I happened to look beside the road and notice a trashcan. My mind did it's normal pingpong ball thinking and I realized how glad I was for the trash men that come and take my garbage away. After all, in Victorian England (we're studying A Christmas Carol) they didn't have that convenience.

I remember as a child out in the country we didn't have any clue what a garbage truck was except through books and movies. We all had a trash pile where we burned what could be burned and a compost bed where anything biodegradable went. While the compost heap was a pretty good idea, the trash pile was another story. True, things burned but you had to deal with the ashes and of course there would always be the leftover materials that just wouldn't burn. Some of those piles could get pretty big until my daddy took his farm equipment and dug a huge hole to bury the trash...then we'd start all over again. Yep, it's pretty cool to have the convenience of just taking my garbage and and rolling it out to the street only to find it has disappeared by the time I return home in the afternoon.

On days that I forget to roll the can to the curb, the trash really builds up. It's a bit of a bother...but if there is  something stinky in there it becomes a bit more. No one wants to return home to the aroma of week old chicken parts or even worse, broccoli leftovers!

I don't think I've ever thought this much about my garbage! Then I got to wondering, where does that garbage go? I've heard stories of floating garbage barges somewhere off the coast of the United States. I know in some places there are "land fills" where the garbage is buried and towns are even built on top of it.  I've even been to "the dump" on a few occasions. (It's a pretty interesting place...but stinky. Don't know if I'd want to live on top of it!)

It's hard to imagine all that people have thrown away. But to be honest, once I take my garbage to the curb, I rarely think about it again...until today. Today I thought about my garbage in a different way when I realized everyone's life is full of garbage, and not the physical kind. Our lives are full of hurts and fears and, let's be honest, sin. There's lots to stink up our life unless I take it to the curb through confession and prayer...but then what happens to it?

I know that old saying, "God tosses it into the sea of forgetfulness" but today I had a thought that caught my breath. What happens to the garbage? It was heaped upon Jesus. When He died on the cross, He took on all my garbage...and everyone else's too. Does that thought hit you in the gut like it did me?

This was a Random Thought I didn't expect to find on the Road to Advent.

2 Corinthians 5:21

New International Version (NIV)

²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Hebrews 9:28
New International Version (NIV)

²⁸ so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him

Isaiah 53:5

New International Version (NIV)

⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
   he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
   and by his wounds we are healed.


Isaiah 53:12  (NIV)

¹² Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,^[a]
   and he will divide the spoils with the strong,^[b]
because he poured out his life unto death,
   and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
   and made intercession for the transgressors.