What is an anchor image you've used recently that you found helpful? How did it carry the passage from beginning to end. Examples of these cases really help new folks see what anchor illustrations are and how they work. I'll go first. In a sermon on Psalm 51, I used the image of someone knocking on the front door while you're sorting dirty laundry in the den. What do you do? Hide? What if you could be free enough to open the door and say, "Come on in, excuse the mess." This carried because I was able to come back to the image over and over, the emotional issues related to it, and the concrete action of opening the door. The mess is real. Confessing the mess is hard. Jesus comes in to clean the mess for us. Now, we can be real, confessing the mess but celebrating the one who bore the stench in my place.

If anyone is looking for an illustration for the Great Exchange I would recommend this one. The True Incident: In the 19th century, Tsar Nicholas I of Russia placed a young man—the son of a friend—in charge of a military fortress's payroll. Over time, the young paymaster began gambling and secretly embezzling the military funds. Eventually, notice came that a general inspector was arriving to audit the books. ​Knowing he was caught, the young man tallied up the massive sum of the stolen money. He was guilty of treason against the crown and faced the firing squad. In despair, he wrote the total at the bottom of the ledger and beneath it wrote the agonizing question: "A great debt. Who can pay?" He pulled out his revolver, intending to take his own life at midnight, but fell asleep at his desk from exhaustion. ​That very night, Tsar Nicholas I was making a surprise inspection of the camp in disguise. Walking through the barracks, he noticed the light in the paymaster's office. He went in, saw the sleeping man, the loaded gun, and the ledger. The Tsar understood immediately what had happened. This young man had made himself an enemy of the crown. But rather than waking him and ordering his arrest, the Tsar picked up a pen, looked at the question, "A great debt. Who can pay?" and simply signed his name at the bottom: "Nicholas, Tsar of Russia." When the young man awoke, ready to end his life, he saw the signature. The next morning, bags of money arrived from the Tsar’s own treasury to settle the debt perfectly. The young man wasn't just spared from death; his completely unpayable debt was absorbed by the King himself, transforming a treasonous rebel into a fiercely loyal, fully reconciled subject for the rest of his life.

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