Little Blue Truck and What is Lacking

“Beep! Beep! Beep!” If you have a toddler in your midst, or if you have a particular affection for chunky board books, you have likely met Little Blue Truck. This book features a plucky pickup truck and plenty of farmyard friends, as well as a Dump Truck who learns a thing or two. From the start, Little Blue is the epitome of friendliness. He beeps greetings to friends as he drives, inviting them to hop in. The Dump Truck is the opposite, rushing through the countryside and scattering farm animals as he goes. This book’s rhymed verse resolves in lessons of friendship and helpfulness, and concludes with a chorus of animal sounds. Alice Schertle and Jill McElmurry have created a stereotypically perfect board book.

What could be lacking?

What could be lacking… There is a moment in the story where the Little Blue Truck rushes into a pile of mud to rescue the insufferable, yet hopelessly stuck, Dump Truck. This scene reminds me so much of Jesus in the incarnation. After rolling through the countryside, greeting friends and fellows with love, Little Blue rushes in to save the haughty, desperate Dump from the muck. Little Blue is a deliverer, a savior so to speak, like our Emmanuel who comes to us in our mired world, descending so far into the depths that he deals with death itself. And yet, Little Blue cannot save the Dump Truck on his own.

There is something lacking. Now, while Little Blue cannot single-handedly accomplish his intended rescue, Christ can, and does. And yet, in Colossians 1:24, Paul talks about filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for us. Paul writes, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,” (Colossians 1:24).

Why does Christ leave something lacking? No one knows the mind of God, but looking at what Paul says, we can notice a few things. This lack leaves room; it leaves room for friendship, for suffering, and for filling. First, friendship. After the incarnation, our Lord ascends, leaving us his spirit. Paul steps in where our Lord left off, filling hearts and minds with the gospel of truth, spreading greetings of “grace and peace”. Or, as the Little Blue Truck, would say, “Beep! Beep! Beep!” These greetings exude friendship, touching upon an innate need in each of us. Our Lord takes on a body to establish us as his body – the church – and to bring us into friendship with him forever. Paul suffers alongside Christ for the sake of this body, enjoying the fullness of “him who fills all in all”. Little Blue gives us a glimpse of a similar filling: at the end of the book, Blue offers his friends a ride, and everybody piles into his truck bed; full to the brim, they ride off into the sunset.

Lest we stop at the sunset prematurely, let’s explore the suffering aspect of the lack that Christ, and Little Blue, leave. The togetherness of the truck bed is forged through suffering, and the friends can’t enter that fullness without it. At the crossroads of our story, the Dump Truck loses control, swerving into the mud after careening through the countryside. He starts to suffer and honks for help, but the other animals ignore him, thinking, of course, that it serves him right. They have no desire to help the Dump Truck. Their muted contempt keeps the animals aloof from the Dump Truck, of course, but it insidiously separates them from one another. The creatures are cordoned off in their pastures, and fellowship is at an impasse.

In one of the most poignant scenes in the book, Little Blue plunges in after the Dump Truck, rolling into mud so deep that his wheels turn with futility. He can’t budge the Dump, and Blue, too, calls for help. This time, the animals do not stand apart. They are compelled by friendship, and they respond, one by one, pushing Blue, and through Little Blue, pushing the Dump Truck too.

Christ fills not just our hearts and minds, but our bodies, and leaves room in his afflictions “for the sake of his body.” He leaves room for us to bear our own crosses. Our Lord, who was battered, bled, and buried to bring us into his fullness, says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:23-24).

In the truck drama, each animal arrives in turn, pushing on the back of the prior, all lined up nudging and shoving. They still can’t move the load, until the last animal hops up - the Toad. Even with all animals but one, there was something lacking. But with every member brought to bear, Blue and the Dump are pushed free.

Likewise, we are called to follow our Lord into the mud, where those that do not know him are mired, so that all lost and lacking members may be brought into the body as well. The body needs its members; not only is there space to fit them in, there is a space set aside for each. Each member is a part of the fullness of Christ’s body and of the church, and adding these members adds a certain fullness to the relationships of all other members.

The story is simple, yet sumptuously redemptive. At the end, the Dump is a convert, so to speak:

“Thanks, little Brother,”

Said the Dump to Blue.

“You helped me and they helped you.

Now I see a lot depends

On a helping hand

From a few good friends!”

The Dump is converted, but I think the friends are too. They learn how to truly enter into friendship – emptying themselves and bearing burdens together – and this proximity with Blue brings them close to one another, too. It maps onto the Gospel story beautifully. Christ rushes in to help each of us, yet he chooses not to do it alone. He bids the community of the faithful to follow, and in following, to take up his cross and lay down our lives. In this, not only do we find friendship with our Lord, but we are able to become friends – true friends – with one another. As our bodies suffer with Christ, we incarnate The Body, the Church, where each of us participates in Christ’s saving work.

What could be lacking? Christ leaves room; room for afflictions, for filling up, and for sharing. He leaves room for Paul and for all who answer the call. Jesus says:

“No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15:15.