Cocaine Christ

Cocaine Christ

Border patrol agents in Laredo, Texas, didn’t notice anything unusual about a package containing a small religious icon, but drug-sniffing dogs did. And when the statue was examined more closely, agents discovered that the painted plaster figurine of Christ was made of nearly six pounds of cocaine valued at more than thirty thousand dollars on the street.

The woman carrying the figurines claimed she agreed to transport the statue to the Laredo bus station (in exchange for eighty dollars) for a man who couldn’t fit it in his luggage. Authorities believe she did not know what she was transporting. They speculate that this may not have been an isolated incident—that unwitting tourists going back and forth between the United States and Mexico may have been trafficking small quantities of illegal substances under the guise of religious souvenirs.^a But I’m not so sure. It seems like a lot of work (compared to bigger, more “traditional” shipments) for a smallish return.

Cocaine Christ seems like a dumb plot—but it makes a great story. Not because the content is uplifting, but because the contrast is jarring. Jarring enough to make a person think. It made me wonder what I may have hidden under the cover of Christ and passed off as “good.” Like gossip masquerading as a prayer request, or animosity as righteous anger, or self-righteous judgment as caring concern. Come to think of it—maybe I could have hatched such a plan, after all!

The irony is, Christ means to cover me. Only he doesn’t want to be a flimsy, painted disguise over my ugly, hidden flaws—he longs to cleanse me of them altogether, by the precious (not cheap) alchemy of his own blood-red sacrifice. I may try to cover my flaws with religiosity—but he stands waiting to do better than that, even before my smuggled “contraband” is sniffed out and exposed.

God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time.

Hebrews 10:10

^a Dane Schiller, “Cocaine Jesus Statue Seized by Agents in Laredo,” Chron, May 28, 2008, http://www.chron.com/life/houston-belief/article/Cocaine-Jesus-statue-seized-by-agents-in-Laredo-1777599.php.