The old coin exchange: It’s a well known trick among the secret association of older siblings. You coax your impressionable younger sibling to trade their little ‘insignificant’ $2 for your much larger ‘more impressive’ 50 cent coin. Classic. If your lucky they fall for it and you can buy yourself a cheeseburger from Maccas.

This Easter it struck me that this ancient practice is reminiscent of the unfair exchange that we try to strike up with Jesus. Our failure, filth and sin for his freedom, righteousness and life. It’s flat out unfair. A dodgy deal. A rip off. Yet we don’t have to coax him or trick him like our our vulnerable younger siblings. He does it willingly, better yet, he wants to trade while WE are vulnerable, strapped for cash and out of luck.

WHAT EVEN!

Why would he do that. Jesus has a case of cash, millions of dollars, and we have one of those old one cent coins that is not even worth anything anymore. Then, just like you did in primary school at lunch time, he walks up and says the life changing words “Wanna trade?”. At that point it seems too good to be true as we think back about the mess that we got ourselves in. The lies we’ve told, the money we’ve blown the poor choices we’ve made. You could say we are in a bit of a pickle… and in one transaction, Jesus is the one to bail us out… for life.

My mind is blown by the scripture in Romans 5:8 

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Christ knew our dirty and dependent state before he laid down his life for us, and he did it anyway. Not because he was deceived, not because he was an idiot, but because he loved us. So he takes our junk and we walk away all the richer. We don’t deserve it but because of what he did on the cross we can enjoy the abundance of life with our saviour.