January 12, 2020

“Children are a heritage from the Lord . . . happy is the man who has a quiver full of them.” Psalm 127

“And a sword shall pierce your soul” Simeon’s words to Mary at the baptism of Jesus.

Two events prompted the theme of this blog for today. 

One was a family gathering yesterday to celebrate the birthday of my second oldest daughter who turned thirty two. I CAN’T believe I have children this old!  Where do the years go?

The second was a sermon sent to me by a friend and former colleague that was based on the passage from St. Matthew in which the prophecy of guiding Israel out of Egypt is applied to Jesus. 

As our family ate and drank and danced and sang I was filled with joy and gratefulness and a sense of humility.  How blessed indeed, as the psalmist says, to have a quiver full of children.  Love’s elixir welled up in the very deepest recesses of my soul.

This morning as I was replaying some of the scenes from yesterday and re-appreciating the moments I thought about people who never had children, or who lost a child to an untimely death or whose children have caused them pain and heartbreak in some other form.  I spoke with two such people this past week. One was named Frank with whom I dined at a senior center.  During our lunch he shared with me an abbreviated version of his life story.  “I had five children”, he said “But two of them died due to bad life decisions.”  Then he moved on, not willing to linger too long on the topic, perhaps at the risk of re-opening the wounds.

Another of the people I spoke with recounted how her son is “throwing away his life.”  He isn’t motivated to do anything except ski. He is, in her words, living like a bum, with no direction in life.  She questions what mistakes she made in parenting to result in this.  Her guilt and pain are palpable.

Children can fill our hearts and pierce them as well.  The pain that parents feel for their children, especially those who are hurting, can be overwhelming.   The hopes and dreams that are harbored by a mother or father can be slowly drained away or shattered all together as the parent watches their child self-destruct.

There are two truths which I am certain of:  One is that everyone who has had children has experienced some sense of grief to different degrees and unique to themselves as a result.  The second is that almost every parent, with only very few exceptions, does not want to see their children suffer.  Love desires only the best.

This leads me to that sermon.  In it the point was made, repeatedly I might add, that the crucifixion of Jesus was a result of God punishing his son for what we deserve.

I don’t believe that.  You can if you want.  Evidently some people do.  I suspect I preached it, or some similar version of it in the past.  I don’t believe it to be true, for at least two reasons.

The first is that more than anything else, God is love! Just as a child, or most children, are the offspring of a union of love, so too God created us, each of us, in love.  God loves each and every one of us immensely.  That is the central and foundational message of who God is, and who we are in relation to God; beloved children.

And therefore the LAST thing that God wants is to see us suffer!  It is a dysfunctional view of God to think that somehow He desires (or even delights?) to punish His beloved children.  No parent wants to see their children suffer and die. Even if the child has been an incorrigible imp!  Even if the child is a horrible human being and has grown up to do awful things or be an awful person.  Almost every parent loves their child and wants the best for them.

To which some might say, “Which is exactly why Jesus had to die on the cross—because God does love us and doesn’t want us to be punished eternally in hell.”  My response:  Really?  God creates us so that we are automatically on the road to hell?  Doesn’t sound very loving to me.  But even IF that were to be true, why can’t God just “speak” a message of rescue and redemption and reconciliation and have it be done?  Why does there need to be punishment by crucifixion inflicted upon Jesus in order to “save” us from perdition? 

Perhaps, just perhaps, the crucifixion did not take place for that purpose.  There are many other possibilities, some of which, like that of “Christus Victor” where Jesus is defeating death by his death, were much more popular in the earliest Christian annals.  Maybe a main message in the midst of the crucifixion is that God can and does empathize fully which each human parent as He watches His Son suffer.  That His heart is breaking, just like ours does, to see the pain that is experienced.  And that it is through that event and experience that somehow we can receive healing from a compassionate and loving Father.

Anyway, I’m getting too far afield here—and too long winded.  So allow me to conclude by saying that what every parent and child desires is a loving relationship.  And that is what God desires for us and our children.  And this message is not only spoken but modelled in the Gospel life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  It is Jesus being called out of the darkness of Egypt that helps in some way to rescue us from the darkness of our heartache as well.