The shiny, plastic cup caught my eye in a Wal-Mart display bin. A new measuring cup! Just what I needed! The markers had worn off my old one, and the graduated cups I'd been using were a hassle. I happily added it to my basket.
There was only one problem with the new cup. A stubborn label was firmly attached to the side and resisted coming off in the dishwater! I soaked it, put the cup aside, and finally managed to get the tenacious sticker off in subsequent washings. I hate labels! They can ruin the surface of glass on a picture frame and so many other things!
The trouble with labels is that they stick! What can really hurt is when a label becomes attached to some person. Kids often grow up with a label applied, maybe in jest, or maybe fondly, but often cruelly. "She is the pretty one." "He is the smart one." "Fatty!" "Slow Learner." "Lazy." "Dummy." "Tiny." "Shorty." The list is endless.
Then there are labels associated with politics or political correctness. "Racist!" "Bigot!" "Sexist!" Terms tossed about carelessly and hatefully. No one wants to be labeled those things!
Growing up with seven brothers, I often heard the mean labels they threw at each other in their hard joshing, mostly about physical characteristics they would outgrow or that would become inconsequential as adults. Then as I began to develop as a young teen, I was the target of their labels which were embarrassing to a sensitive girl-child!
Even Jesus was labeled! In Mark 3:21 he was labeled "beside himself" (crazy) by friends (and family). In the next verse, the scribes inferred he was possessed by Beelzebub (prince of devils).
But Pilate put a sign over Jesus's cross saying, JESUS OF NAZARETH, KING OF THE JEWS. (When the chief priests protested, saying "Write not, The King of the Jews, but that he said, I am king of the Jews," Pilate replied, "What I have written, I have written.")
Matthew 27:54 says, "Now when the centurion and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God." The right label at last!
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