Paying the Debt

January 29

Paying the Debt

A story is told about Fiorello LaGuardia, the beloved mayor of New York City during the worst days of the Great Depression.

One bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the mayor turned up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city. LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench himself. Within a few minutes, a tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread.

She told LaGuardia that her daughter’s husband had deserted her, her daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving. But the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the charges. “It’s a real bad neighborhood, your Honor,” the man told the mayor. “She’s got to be punished to teach other people around here a lesson.”

LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said “I’ve got to punish you. The law makes no exceptions -- ten dollars or ten days in jail.”

But even as he pronounced sentence, the mayor was already reaching into his pocket. He extracted a bill and tossed it into his famous sombrero, saying: “Here is the ten dollar fine which I now remit; and furthermore I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. ‘Mr. Baliff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.’”

So the following day the New York City newspapers reported that $47.50 was turned over to a bewildered old lady who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren, fifty cents of that amount being contributed by the red-faced grocery store owner, while some seventy petty criminals, people with traffic violations, and New York City policemen, each of whom had just paid fifty cents for the privilege of doing so, gave the mayor a standing ovation.-- Brennan Manning (from The Ragmuffin Gospel)


"My son, if your heart is wise, my own heart also will be glad; and my inmost being will rejoice when your lips speak what is right." Proverbs 23:15-16

Mayor LaGuardia, for whom LaGuardia Airport in New York is named, is one of the most greatly admired men of his time. Certainly, in this instance when he left his mayoral home to participate in the proceedings of a debtors’ court, he evidenced not only human compassion but also the spirit of Christ who left the glory of Heaven to come to Earth and pay man’s horrible debt of sin.

Certainly this story of LaGuardia is reminiscent of the words spoken of Jesus in Philippians 2:6-11 which tell us:

“Jesus, who, being in very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be held to His own advantage; rather, He made Himself of no reputation by taking on the very nature of a servant, and being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death—even to death on a cross!

“Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

This story of LaGuardia, a mere man who evidenced the loving compassion of our dear God and Savior Jesus Christ, should inspire us to live our lives in such conformity to His that we may behold the impoverished spiritual condition of our fellow sojourners on this fallen planet and introduce them to the One who “Owns the cattle on a thousand hills,” Psalm 50:10, and who promised in Philippians 4:19 that He would, “supply all your needs according to His riches in glory.”

Man’s greatest need is not financial, not physical, not emotional, not professional, but spiritual. Until the ransom for his debt of sin has been paid through his acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice in his behalf, nothing else he has can avail him anything but a temporary enjoyment of the fleeting advantages of time.

May we shout it from the housetops (Matthew 10:27) that as Fiorello LaGuardia set men free from monetary debt, so Jesus Christ has set all men who believe His love and receive His salvation free of the debt of sin.