God Bless the Freaks

I actually saw a bumper sticker yesterday that read:

"God Bless the Freaks"

I searched for other stickers on the vehicle, hoping to judge the intent of the driver(s), whether serious or sarcastic, but alas there were no Jesus-fish emblems, no family stick figures, no "my child is an honor student" stickers, and likewise, no Election 2008 preferences, stickers of skulls or demonic smiles, Burton stickers, nor Indie botanical yoga-mat wanna-be designs.

Interestingly, I did a little search online, and found "Northern Sun, Products for Progressives," who sell this little item. Apparently, those who bought "God Bless the Freaks" also bought these other bumper stickers:

• "We can't cure the world of sorrows but we can choose to live in joy"
• "Treehugging dirt worshipper", and
• "Not all who wander are lost"

Hmmm. Based on those, I've decided to jump to my own conclusions. In the Old Testament, persons with imperfections (the "defective, disfigured, deformed, crippled, and diseased" a.k.a. FREAKS) were prohibited from making offerings or coming near to the altar for sacrifice. Only the unblemished sacrifice was considered holy (Lev 21). Sounds pretty politically INcorrect, huh?

Can you imagine a world where only the perfect gain access to God? Despite how unjust and unfair that sounds, those are actually the rules: "Be perfect, therefore, as your Heavenly Father is perfect." (Matt 5:48). And we're talking genuine, unblemished perfection, not just the commercialized-Christian version of pretend-perfect or surface-perfect. Of course, none of us measures up to that yardstick-- even Mary Poppins only measured as 'practically perfect in every way.'

Thank God, literally, for standing in our place: "how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God." (Heb 9:14)

So no matter how FREAKISH we are, we can have the blessings of God bestowed upon us, not when we are perfect in and of ourselves, but when we accept the perfect sacrifice of Christ. God bless us freaks, indeed!