Thursday, August 20, 2015

Think about His love.

One of my favorite praise songs from yesteryear was entitled Think about His Love.  Written by Walt Harrah, it spoke of the pursuing, relentless love of God.  The part that always grabbed me was the final line of the chorus…great is the measure of our Father’s love.  It reflects one of my favorite passages from the Old Testament as well:  Lamentations 3:22, 23—

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

The verse is intriguing, to say the least. Most of us cannot imagine why we would ever be in danger of being consumed.  We see the benevolence of God as almost a birthright, an entitlement.  That is because we often choose to only relate to one aspect of His nature—His kindness, His charity.  Jeremiah had come face to face with the holy fury of God as well and realized that apart from God’s compassion, we would all be toast—literally!

We know from the scriptures that God’s spirit can be grieved, so let’s assume our Father God experienced profound pain, grief and loss over the slaughter of His Son at the hands of sinful men.  This was, of course, despite the fact that He orchestrated it.  Isaiah 53 says; “Yet it was the Lord’s [Father’s] will to crush him [Jesus] and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the [Father] will prosper in his [Jesus’] hand.”  Jesus had to be a willing Isaac, but the Father had to be an equally willing Abraham, so to speak. 

I once passed a church during the season of Lent which had a crude, wooden cross near the curb with a sign below quoting Lamentations 1:12.  It read simply:  Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?   As I drove by, the words began to impact me immediately.  Why have I grown so casual about this symbol of God’s love for me?  What kind of sacrificial act was this? 

For a moment, my mind flashed back to the days of the Vietnam war.  Vivid in my memory were the images from TV reports showing fathers of slain soldiers as they watched protests and 
flag-burnings.  Think about it: even as they were burying their sons and daughters, who had been killed while trying to preserve those very freedoms, their children’s heroic acts were being despised.  I was aware that I knew little of this kind of love.  Soon after, I heard a story that helped me understand a little better.  I can’t prove that it really happened.  I only know it helped me get in touch with the measure of my Father’s love.

There once lived a man called “Big John” whose job it was to operate a mechanical drawbridge. Several times a day a train sped across this bridge carrying passengers safely across a deep and potentially deadly river.  Big John’s job was crucial, of course, as the slightest delay in lowering the bridge to accommodate the oncoming train could mean certain derailment, hurling the train and its occupants to their death.

On one particular sunny afternoon, Big John decided it would be a delight to bring his young son, Little John, to the jobsite and allow him the thrill of watching him work.  Sure enough, the boy could not contain his excitement witnessing his dad in action, lifting and pushing levers which engaged the mighty gears as they empowered the bridge to open and close at Pop’s command.  It was not difficult for Little John to realize that the fate of many lives lay in his father’s hands, and the lad was filled with pride.  Someday, perhaps, he could be so important.  Someday, he thought, people’s lives could depend on him.  How exciting it all was!

About noon that day Big John and the boy sat down to lunch and talked about the possibility of the Little John actually trying out the levers later that day.  As they talked, time seemed to slip away, and only the loud piercing whistle of the oncoming 1:05 train jarred Big John back to reality.  Realizing that the bridge remained in its UP position, he had only a matter of seconds to react to engage the gears, which could lower the tracks in time to greet the speeding train.  As he quickly maneuvered the levers, he assured himself that, in fact, there would be enough time to ready the bridge. 

Just then he heard Little John scream.  The boy had apparently lost his balance on the walkway above the gear mechanism, causing him to plunge headlong into the grinding, steel machine.  In a split second, the father torturously considered his alternatives: stop the whole process with a pull of a lever, thereby saving his son, while watching hundreds of innocent passengers plunge to their death--or allow the gears to continue engaging the bridge.  Big John knew the latter option would provide safe passage for the train’s occupants while at the same time tearing his hapless child into pieces. 

In his heart of hearts, he knew he had only one choice.  With tears streaming down his face accompanied by the loud cry of a man gone mad, he held his hand steady, watching as the bridge slowly came into perfect alignment just seconds before the roaring train zoomed by, its passengers casually unaware of the sacrifice just made on their behalf.  Some were sleeping, some played cards--others just gazed out the window as if nothing had happened.  John could not bring himself to look downward at what had become of his precious boy, but instead stared intently at the blank faces in front of him.  Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? 

Understandably, this story is not an attempt to accurately reflect the Christian gospel, on a number of fronts. Firstly, God the Father didn’t sacrifice His Son because He was forced into a real tight spot, as Isaiah 53 clearly teaches. “It was the Lord’s [Father’s] will to crush him [Jesus]”. Secondly, unlike the hapless boy in the story, the scriptures clearly teach that Jesus offered himself willingly, voluntarily. Thirdly, the people on the train were completely unaware of what was going on. They weren’t to blame for the accident, unlike you and me…and everyman. Isaiah continues, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way.” Still, this illustration reminds us that the Amighty One so loved us that at a point in time He allowed Himself to experience profound grief and loss as His beloved son was slaughtered for the sake of others.  Is there any debate? Great is the measure of our Father’s love.

tad

No comments:

Post a Comment