I was wandering through the South Terminal at SeaTac airport, just passing the time before boarding a plane to Greensboro, when I saw it. At first I walked right past, certain that I had missed part of the message. But then I looked again and there it was—unmistakable, clear and startling. I had glanced at it because I was considering buying something to drink, but dismissed it as my choice. That is until I realized what it I was seeing.

There in front of me was a bright, shiny vending machine. Situated between the Pepsi machine and the snack dispenser it was exactly where it would be expected to be. It was a coffee dispensing vending machine. I don’t suppose that such an offering would compete with the many Starbucks counters just a few feet away, but for someone not wanting to wait in a line it could offer a desired commodity. The machine was attractive and new—that was to be expected. But what was not expected, and what I could hardly believe to be true, was the message that silently scrolled by in a red-orange LED display just above the slot designed to receive the necessary coins to complete the purchase. That sign read All beverages from this machine are free…


Free it read—at least that is what I thought it read. I waited for the words to come around again, and they did. All beverages from this machine are free…

That made no sense. Next to the machine that would dispense a small bottle of water for two dollars or the one offering approximately a dozen potato chips for the same price it was impossible to have a cup of coffee for the price of zero…There must be some gimmick I thought—some trick to get me to commit to something that would cost me as much as the neighbors were charging. Maybe the coffee was free but there would be a charge for the cup. A little far-fetched thinking, but at this point far-fetched seemed closer to reality than acceptance of the words that kept coming around, All beverages from this machine are free…

Now I cannot say that a cup of coffee was my first choice as I wandered the terminal, but this message made it so. And not just a cup of coffee but a cup of coffee from this machine. So I pushed the buttons and waited. Sure enough, a cup dropped and coffee poured into it. And when it stopped pouring I took it out and tasted it—not great but good and hot. And as I stood there in amazement, tasting what had been given me, the message changed on the machine. No longer did it say All beverages from this machine are free… Instead it read, This is cup number 8,231 from this machine. This second message circulated once or twice, then the original reappeared for others to see, All beverages from this machine are free…

To this day I do not know what this was all about. I do not know if the machine is still there. I will check the next time I am at SeaTac, but I do not know. What I do know is that it seemed so out of place that I could not believe it at first. Nothing is free, so they say—there is no such thing as a free lunch so goes the axim. Certainly in an airport where products sell for twice their price just outside the doors, the message was startling. But because I tried it, I do know that the message was true. And while I was the only one accessing the machine at the time, I guess I was not the first to find out that indeed, All beverages from this machine are free…

This little encounter with a machine and a message made me pause. It made me think about all sorts of mundane things—but also about one that is the center of the Christian faith. All other religions, philosophies and ways of life charge something up front to receive what they claim to give. That charge may be money, it may be a sacrifice, it may be a life worthy of receiving what is offered. But, as the Apostle Paul says, the Christian faith says that what we as humans pay for, that is what we deserve, is death, while what we are offered—freely and without charge—is life. When Jesus said, I came that you may have life, he did not mean I came that you may buy life but I came that I may give you life.

Now I know that someone had to have paid something to place the coffee machine in the airport, and someone had to have paid to purchase the coffee, supply the electricity and provide the cup. The coffee was not free—but it was free to me. And the message of God’s love is that He has paid the price for what we need, and because that price has been paid the message that now scrolls across the heavens for us to read is All that is in God’s heart is free…It is a message that is so out of line with all other messages that we are taught that it makes no sense. It is a message that seems out of place and unbelievable. It is a message that is so strange that many will simply dismiss it as a mistake or a trap. But to those who receive it, who believe in its truth, it gives the power to become children of God. An unbelievable message on one hand, but the hope of the world on the other. Thanks be to God!