As a well deserved favor to my best friend, Beth, I held tightly to her credit card and waited with baited breath by the internet linkage for advanced ticket sales for the Kenny Chesney concert to open up.
Precisely at the tick of 10 am, my less than nimble fingers entered the appropriate information and the process of hoping that in a venue which will seat approximately 70 THOUSAND screaming, enthusiatic and delirious fans that I would be able to aquire the requisite number of tickets for her party to attend one of the greatest events the summer will offer fans of country music.
Making the selection after being informed the infield seats were all sucked up in roughly a nano-second, I selected from the approved list of 'these would be good choices too' for a section where they would be able to hear and see Kenny just like if they were having him over for a quiet family barbeque without being obstructed by a goal post or a beam.
Quicker than it takes to type the story, the machinations of the digital age whipped the circuitry into a frenzy and plopped down the final tally and seating arrangements for the concert. I don't think I've ever been more excited to buy any tickets of my own!
Of course, this isn't my first rodeo when it comes to being the proxy ticket purchaser for other concert goers. It is a real honor to be trusted to take someone's credit card and represent their interests if only for that momentary bit of pleasure that is derived from the concert.
It sort of struck me that much of life is a process of proxy representation. We stand in for our friends as seconds at weddings and fights, buying tickets at events and placing orders in restaurant speakers. We stand in as representatives for our children before they reach the golden age of majority and for our parents when they reach the twilight of life and are no longer able to discern their own best interests and act upon them.
Infants require the proxy of their parents as health care and doctor visits attempt to provide assurances of good health. Elementary age children have proxy in the parents who sign for their ability to behave, participate and find their place in the classrooms of the world.
Even in matters spiritual, we have a proxy. Indeed, we require a proxy in order for any of those tender teachings to ever have any weight in our eternal welfare's concern. Without a proxy, we are left to stand naked and ashamed before God Almighty to pay in full for those sins and transgressions that we simply cannot cover, a debt for which we will never receive a revocation nor a remission without the assistance of a proxy who has the ability and the strength to stand in our place and take our stripes FOR us.
While buying tickets and atoning for another are leagues apart in both intent and purpose, the simple math of one doing for another is not lost on my simple mind.
That God planned by divine design to make a world where we could come and sort out the processes of daily living, but with a terrible and majestic price. The very Son of God would willingly look upon us as agents unto ourself, but agents who simply lacked the ability to pay the fullest part of the measure when the time came. Jesus would intercede in a way that was most personal and unique in a way that simply cannot be universally explained away.
Because we are all God's children and we are all different in the need for the services of that One who is Our Proxy, Jesus Christ looks into our very soul to meet the full measure of our guilt and our lack, our want and our need, and deep into our very person to offer himself fully for that which we cannot pay.
That is a kind of golden ticket much better than anything that we stand in lines for either literally or digitally, whether that standing for tickets happens in private circumstance or public entertainment, the result is the same.
Sometimes we just need a friend to make something we need to happen truly occur.
I do not make my participation great. Rather I acknowledge the many times that my family, my husband and children, and most certainly my friends have stepped into the breech and paid for that which I could not.
Perhaps that is the reason that I feel so honored to be offered in any way the opportunity to be able to step into that same role for another for whom I care.
Just thinking with my keyboard today . . .
