Let Me Pay First

“Please let me pay for something,” I say as my new friend passes the cash through the vendor’s window. We are in the square, which is vigorously decorated in Christmas lights and garlands; it constantly smells like sugar and hazelnuts wafting from the pop-up shops that are arranged to remind the crowds of Santa’s village. All that it lacks is a coating of snow, which has been stubbornly absent from Romania for the past few weeks. “No, I don’t mind,” my Romanian friend responds as she hands me the sweet bread. Hard on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside, with a coating of cinnamon and sugar, the cylinder of fried bread looks as good as it tastes. I break off a piece, savoring the sweetness of Romanian delicacies and new friendship. 

In America, everyone pays for their own things. In Romania, it is customary to pay for your guest. We, as humans, have such a messed-up mindset, haunted by arrogance, that refuses to be helped. The thing is, we have to be helped. We can’t possibly do this life by ourselves, we can’t possibly save ourselves from the catastrophe called sin. Never could we repay the debt we owe to heaven, much less support anyone else. The good news is, we don’t have to repay. The good news is, our debt is fully, abundantly, and unconditionally covered in blood the color of a crimson rose. 

In Matthew, Jesus tells a parable about how the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle his accounts with his servants. (Matthew 18:21-35) One servant owed an incredible amount, a number so preposterous that it would have been impossible to repay. The merciful king forgave the servant, but as soon as he was pardoned, the man grabs his fellow servant and demands the meager sum that is owed to him. The fellow servant begged for forgiveness, the first refused to give it, and threw his friend into debtor’s prison. When the King found out about this, he was furious, and handed the first servant over to jailers to be tortured until his debt was repaid. 

All we can do in the presence of God Almighty is beg for forgiveness from our incredible debt to Him. There is no good thing, no right word, no sufficient song we could muster that could ever attain His standard of holiness. The good news is that His broken body and flowing blood satisfies the demands of the Living God. The good news is, we are free. The good news is, that because we are completely and irrevocably forgiven, we can also forgive our neighbors completely and irrevocably. This is the gospel, the good news, that allows Him to pay first, so that we might extend grace to another. This is the gospel that says, “Let me pay first.”