Under the Bus by Lorraine Triggs
Two separate stories on my news feed recently claimed that Politician A threw Politician B under the bus. Or was it the other way around? No matter, both politicians are now under the bus, which might be a good thing—or not.
As the youngest of three girls, one would think that I would be well acquainted with the underside of a bus—an easy target as it were for blame whenever our sibling skirmishes got out of hand. Fortunately, our mother wasn’t into throwing things or people under buses or other places. As arbitrator, she operated on a single principle when things went awry and none of us were taking responsibility. Obviously, one person was guilty; the second person was guilty by association, and third guilty by her silence.
According to Merriam Webster, “No one is certain where the phrase ‘throw (somebody) under the bus’—meaning to betray or sacrifice a person, particularly for the sake of one’s own advancement, or as a means of safe-guarding one’s own interests—comes from. But there’s probably enough evidence to throw British English under the bus.”
Perhaps the venerable dictionary should have looked elsewhere for the origin of this idiom, such as the Garden of Eden. The serpent intentionally threw Adam and Eve under the bus in the first move to advance his own kingdom. Adam and Eve may not have been as intentional as the serpent, but they were quick to safeguard their own interests to avoid blame.
It’s remarkable how much we resemble our first parents in shifting blame. It’s a bit like the advice my car insurance agent always gives—don’t admit fault—and if a bus happens to pass by, all the better. Even more remarkable is how subtle we are at self-advancement. Something goes wrong and we jump to the head of the line—not to admit fault but to clear our good name. It’s our kingdom, uh, our reputation at stake.
I take another look at Merriam Webster again and read the words betrayal and sacrifice. This is the language of a promise made and a promise fulfilled that the one we despised, rejected and didn’t esteem would be the one who would heal us with his wounds.
In the language of another garden at another time, where a reputation wasn’t considered a thing to be grasped, where the Son, like his Father in the cool of the day in that first garden, came to seek and save the lost.
It’s not Merriam Webster, but the Bible, God's living Word, where the language of grace and of mercy and rescue and restoration begins to make a miraculous and unfathomable kind of sense. It is there that we see the Stone the builders rejected become the cornerstone in a whole new way of life. It is there that God himself looks, even goes under the bus, or wherever we’ve been hiding. Jesus finds us and keeps taking the guilt and blame on himself. God who forgives and brings us under his rule and kingdom, the hiding place where we find ourselves transformed, a people no longer in darkness but living, working, walking today in the place of his marvelous light