A guy from St. Johns, Michigan named Leo Burnett was an advertising executive who created the Jolly Green Giant, Charlie the Tuna, and Morris the Cat.  But his most enduring "human" icon was the Marlboro Man.  We don't see cigarette commercials as much these days, but the image of the rugged individualist in nature with nothing but his own masculinity continues.

I know.  He was in my back yard yesterday.

After worship services, the Grace youth came over to our house at noon to rake leaves.  Recently, a devilish pinched nerve has kept me from getting at the job myself.

So, Kye, Sean, Jessica, Chris, Kevin, and Sidney with some parents all showed up with rakes and tarps.

So did the Marlboro Man.

You see, I had to demonstrate that I wasn't entirely helpless.  I couldn't rake.  I couldn't bend over to pick up the corners of a tarp or shoulder a load of leaves.  But I had to prove I wasn't a complete weakling.

As Tim, the Tool Man, Taylor, would say, "Whrooo, whrooo, whrooo, whrooo, whrooo!"

I could at least sling a leaf blower from my arm.  I'm rugged.  I'm a tough guy.  I'm not entirely toothless.  I ain't no sissy to sit and watch others clean up my mess.  I'm the Marlboro Man.

But that wasn't the end of it.

The youth didn't just rake the worst of the leaves.  They got into the flower beds, reached under trees, dug behind the compost pile.  They kept going way beyond what I would have wanted to do myself.

I'm thinking, "O.K., enough already.  You've done the front yard and under the big maple in back.  I can take care of the little side yard myself."  But, oh no.  They started raking there too.  Once that's done they go at the incidental leaves behind the viburnam.  They came to clean up the whole thing and didn't leave anything to me.

Marlboro Man was reduced to Pillsbury Doughboy, another of Leo Burnett's creations.  I didn't have anything left to do.  What can you do except say thank you.

It came to me yesterday afternoon that I have a great long way to go in appreciating the depth of what it means to have my salvation entirely in the hands of God.  My own self-sufficiency is as much an invention as Burnett's Tony the Tiger and just as much a fiction as Mr. Marlboro.

When I am embarrassed to have three mothers, Paula Ruff, Pam Whalen, and Sue Roth in my yard also raking leaves which are my responsibility, it's not a surprise I should be uncomfortable to confess my helplessness in the far more impossible realities.

Too frequently, we reckon by our masculinity or competence.  We call on our own means and skills, our own pride and independence.  We don't want to feel beholden.  And how often do we say thank you, not by simply receiving but by reciprocating, "When I get better, I'll come rake your leaves."  That's not the way it is with God.

How often haven't we received His gifts but retained a measure of autonomous self-worth.  We want to preserve the notion that Marlboro Man is still valid, that I can make it on my own, forge my own way, and light up when it suits me. 

But yesterday, our youth reminded me that all of life is receiving.  All of faith is receptivity.  No one can be a Christian without the realization that he is utterly dependent, unarmed, unfit, and incapable. 

In other words: a wimp.

Our creation was not a partnership.  Neither was our salvation some joint venture.  Jesus didn't do just the heavy lifting.  He did it all.  He came to the cross and did infinitely more than we ever conceived could be done.  He did it not for credit or prestige but only so that you and I could receive.  Receive!

In order that you and I may obtain remission of sins, life, and salvation, Jesus came.  And he didn't turn up as a fabricated Marlboro Man, solitary, tough, mysterious, simplistic, and carefree.

No, Christ came as a complete and real man.  He was masculine, but never solitary because He came only for us.  He took all of fallen humanity into his own flesh.  He was tender.  He was open and never enigmatic.  And most of all, he was by no means carefree.  Our burdens and sorrows he carried in spite of our leathered pride.  He came in weakness and died in dishonor.  That's not the Marlboro style.

But it is the fashion of a man-servant who came to do it all for us.  Christ succeeded, and because He did, you and I simply receive.

That's all of it.  We receive!