Tonight as I was snuggling with my two year old son, Landon, & we were going through our usual routine, “Daddy snuggle me just 2 more minutes,” and ultimately me conceding at least once or twice, the thought suddenly popped into my head,
“How am I going to handle it when a girl someday breaks this kids heart?”
Random! I know!
But there it was, a dreadful thought! I began to remember when I got my heart broken. I was a Sophomore in college, I got a phone call, if there is such a thing as “Dear John” phone calls that was it…I was dumped. I didn’t see it coming & I was heart broken. It was close to 1 a.m., but one of the first things I did was call my parents. My mom answered, I could tell I woke-her-up. “Mom,” I sputtered, “Chad what’s wrong?” “Mom, (Name withheld for protection since this individual may never want to admit to dating me:)) just broke-up with me!” I said through sobs.
Landon is two, he won’t even date for 15 years, but I found myself saddened at just the thought of that potential call.
And maybe it’s because I’m a preacher, but everything turns into a Spiritual nugget; & this was no exception.
Because while I was pondering and sorrowing over my two year old son’s future heart break at the hands of some woman whom fails to see how awesome he is! 🙂
This text popped into my mind,
“He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” –Isaiah 53:3
And suddenly I understood it differently.
In the past I have seen this sorrow and this grief directly related to the emotional and physical torment Jesus personally went through on this earth; and maybe that is still what this text is primarily saying.
But tonight as a Dad worrying about his son’s hypothetical heartbreak and the ensuing phone call I will receive at 1 in the morning, I saw Jesus as sorrowful and grief stricken because He loves me so much that every hurt I have, He intimately felt and feels.
Before I had kids I never saw anything sorrowful or even painful about the life of a toddler. Now my heart hurts when I see my kids wounded physically and emotionally. I’m a man of sorrows & acquainted with the griefs of toddlers because I love them so much!
And one day if we are still on this planet, I will be sorrowful & grief stricken for pre-adolescent children, and then I will feel the sorrow & grief of teenagers, I will feel the sorrow & grief of getting dumped…not because I’ve been dumped…but because I have a son that has received that “Dear John” phone call.
Jesus loves me more than I love my kids, no wonder He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; when my heart breaks, His heart breaks.
My Mom got me through that phone call, but I later learned that when she hung-up her and my Dad shed a few tears of their own.
Why?
Because that is the essence of loving parents, our sorrow is their sorrow, our grief is their grief.
Our sorrow is His sorrow. Our grief is His grief.
The theory that God created this world in 6 literal days just a few thousand years ago, is a belief that is seen as foolish by much of the world (around 40% of the United States believes in a literal Creation by God less than 10,000 years ago), even many in Christian circles (less 40% have absolute belief in the Genesis creation account but 78.4% claim to be Christians). The attacks to this theory often come through scientific arguments, but I believe that the attacks on what happened at creation are even more visible elsewhere. And that place is RELATIONSHIPS!
Scientists have been blamed for trashing Genesis 1 & 2, but the real trashing of the creation account is ALL OF US, because the great theme of the creation accoun is not how many days God made the earth or how many years ago that was, the great theme of the creation story is: Relationship.
Relationship with God
“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” –Genesis 1:26-28
The IMAGE language of Genesis 1 is relationship language. I am a parent and since the day both my boys have been born one of the most common conversations, especially with new people we meet is the conversation of, “Oh he looks just like you!” “He looks just like his dad.” “Oh but I see some of his mom in him too.” Why do people say these things? Why do we have this conversation over and over again? Because we like the idea that someone looks like us, someone is like us, someone is from us. Why do we like this idea? Because it holds with it the idea that there will always be this person to be in relationship with! I believe, and I see the totality of scripture supporting this idea, that God was saying with each statement of image, “this is my child who will always be mine.” So when we do not reflect the image of God by being loving, (1 John 4:8), we are in fact rejecting the creation story and trashing the creation story.
Another area in the creation account where God illustrated the relationship idea between God and man is in what happened after the 6 literal days, it was God’s lack for creation on the 7th day that emphasized relationship with Him.
“1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” –Genesis 2:1-3
The Sabbath was specifically established as a day of relationship, primarily relationship with God to delight in God (Isaiah 58:13-14). When we do what we want on the Sabbath that is not something done in communion with God, or when we don’t keep the Sabbath (both of these are the exact same thing, not keeping the Sabbath at all is just as much a denial of God’s day as doing things that are not in accordance with Relationship to God on the Sabbath) we are trashing and denying the creation story, the creation account.
Basically what I am saying is this. Folk can blame the evolutionists all they want for destroying the validity of the Bible. And people can condemn the certain scientists all they want for weakening the belief in God’s literal creation.
But by being unloving and by not honoring the Sabbath. You and I, we are equal to the evolutionists in the destruction of God as Creator and in creating doubt in people’s minds for the infallibility of scripture.