Jesus at the Tollbooth

Believing in Jesus is like when someone pays it forward at the tollbooth. Has that ever happened to you? You're waiting in line at a tollway and when you finally get to the booth, the attendant just waves you through because the guy ahead of you gave him an extra 50 cents for you to go through. It happened to me one time, and it was a great feeling. I've done it for other people since.

Now what if the guy ahead was waiting for you beyond the tollbooth and he wanted his 50 cents back? What if he wanted your car? What if he told you if you didn't give him your car, you'd be tortured for eternity?

That is the deal we make with Jesus. He rolled up to God's tollbooth and said "Let me get all the cars for the next 2000+ years". Word gets back from car to car that this guy is paying tolls ahead. People who go through, and have to give him their car go back in the line (on foot) and tell everyone how great Jesus is for paying our toll. You want to say 'no thanks, I'll pay my own toll' but, then you get tortured for eternity.

He did us a favor thousands of years ago, that we did not ask for but for which we are still in debt countless generations later. I do not call that salvation. I call it extortion.

If you are waiting in line for the toll, realize THERE IS NO TOLLBOOTH. You can go right on ahead.

"Go right on ahead..." Does this permit us to do whatever we want? Moral relativism! Egad! No, to stick with the metaphor I say we have traffic laws we all choose to obey for the overall good of the drivers on the road. Morality has evolved to ensure survival as we fine tune the social contracts by which we exchange certain freedoms for security. Like my right to swing my fist ends at your face. Although we may blindly follow traffic laws, they are at least based on reason. Using the Bible as your only moral compass is like following traffic laws from horse and buggy days.

Modern Christians can now feel comfortable getting on board with evolution. "It's the method God chose for creation," they will say. Natural Selection? Sure no problem. It's elegant in it's simplicity and efficiency. Surely the work of the Creator (nevermind explaining how a system of gradual complexity comes from a being much more complex in the first place. O right, He exists outside the physical realm. Whatever, moving on). They can believe in a historical Jesus, one who performed miracles and was resurrected and science simply reveals more of God's wondrous creation.

But how do Modern Christians feel about the Garden of Eden these days? Can you say now that you believe life was created in 7 days, people first, then plants and animals, as described in the Bible? Are you hesitating? Are you saying "Well a "DAY" isn't really a day because in the original Hebrew DAY just meant some period of time". If you want to talk translation, check out Almah, the word for 'Virgin' and see if that changes anything. No, I mean Genesis, Chapter 1, in the inerrant , as in true as written Bible.

You NEED the garden of eden story to happen as written so you can achieve Original Sin because that is what Jesus is saving us from. As a pastor once told me as a child, it's like God shot arrows of judgment at the whole human race, angry at our disobedience and sin, but there was Jesus, his only son, to intercept those arrows and suffer so that we may have eternal life. I was about 10 I think. Scared the shit out of me.

Now that Christianity is modernized and it's ok to believe evoution is God's chosen method of creation, the Garden of Eden becomes a just a story again. Why do we need to be saved because of events that took place in a story?

Again, there is no tollbooth. Stop worrying about your place in the afterlife and start affecting life in the here and now. Pick a cause and do what you can. Do it because you're inspired to help people, not because you fear judgement down the line or you think a god wants you to. I trust someone who does a good deed with no expectation of reciprocation way more than someone who expects repayment, with interest for a debt you did not incur yourself and for a favor you did not ask for.


Amen.

Comments welcome.