On the gospel -- for us and for our children

Another piece of writing I was honored to put together and share recently for a special baby shower. I've removed the intro and names. Also shared with permission from the guest of honor.

~

Question: in all our childbearing and rearing (more than that, in all of our life, from first to last) what gives us peace and courage and deep, abiding joy and perseverance? The answer is that it’s the gospel. All of our faithful parenting springs from the gospel – from resting in Christ, and resting on Christ and His finished work.

The gospel can be very familiar, but I want us to just take a few minutes to think on it again – specifically the gritty reality of it and the incredible mystery. First, to think on the paradox of Christ’s coming: His real – absolutely real – incarnation and birth. Leading to and bound together with the cross – the bull's eye center of history and all of creation – the Incarnation validates the original value and goodness of the physical matter of creation.

The Incarnation of Christ – forever glorifying and (in the end) ultimately redeeming all of His creation.

Matthew 1:23 knocks me breathless every time I try to really grab hold of it, "Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel," which is translated, “God with us.”

God with us.

The enormity of this is crazy – nigh incomprehensible.

To quote from Augustine of Hippo: "Man’s maker was made man that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that Truth might be accused of false witness, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might grow weak; that the Healer might be wounded; that Life might die."

It's mind-boggling.

God came in the flesh. A crying, hungry baby. Growing up and going to the cross for the salvation of the world. Our God delights in doing the unexpected, and His incredible goodness spills out over His creation.

But the joy and merriment of the gospel in thinking about the coming of Christ in the flesh does not gloss over the pain-filled voice of the widow crying out to her God, or the aching tears of the fatherless. Christ’s coming does not deny the darkness and terror and death pervading God’s good creation. His coming is because of it… because of the suffering, the violence, the sin. Our sin… And our children’s sin.

Surrounding that first coming of Christ in the flesh, there was emotional travail and the physical discomfort of travel and the pain of a girl in child labor and then the murder of innocent children.

To quote from The Christian Imagination, edited by Leland Ryken, “To many… Christianity seems soppy. That is because they have not seen the real goods. True Christian imaging meets violence head-on... [We] must face the reality of Job’s cry, the cry of God’s crucifixion, and of our participation in it. Once this is recognized, faith becomes not only possible, but necessary.”

In John 11:35 (outside Lazarus’s tomb) we read, “Jesus wept.” The famous, shortest verse in the Bible, and one that can be both puzzling and ambiguous. Was He weeping – groaning – out of sympathy with all the present mourners? Yes, surely that too, but also (and perhaps more properly) the Greek could be translated as “raged.”

In the words of B.B. Warfield: “Inextinguishable fury seizes upon him (Christ)… It is death that is the object of his wrath, and behind death him who has the power of death, and whom he has come into the world to destroy. Tears of sympathy may fill his eyes, but this is incidental. His soul is held by rage: and he advances to the tomb, in Calvin’s words… ‘as a champion who prepares for conflict.’… What John does for us in this particular statement is to uncover to us the heart of Jesus, as he wins for us our salvation. Not in cold unconcern, but in flaming wrath against the foe, Jesus smites in our behalf. He has not only saved us from the evils which oppress us; he has felt for and with us in our oppression, and (with those) feelings has wrought out our redemption.”

Our Warrior, our Kinsmen Redeemer, coming in the flesh, coming to give Himself over to pain and agony and death. Coming and advancing on the foe in a white hot heat of burning zeal, He goes to the cross on behalf of His chosen ones.

This is grace.

And then comes the Resurrection. So many twists and turns, and such darkness, and then the blinding surprise of joy round the roughest, darkest corner of all. God the Son alive with perfect and resurrected flesh. God the Son now reigning at His Father's right hand over the nations and hearing the prayers of His people. Knowing His people. Intimately. Knowing, as only the Shepherd can, all the deepest darkest corners around which He is leading us. Knowing, too, the blinding joy waiting on the other side.

“Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:14-16

And this matters to every Christian, every day. Because we carry about with us the dying of our Lord Jesus. Because we are dying to self every day and being resurrected to newness of life. Because we are dying to live every day of our lives.

Moreover, we have Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

It's Christ alone and Him crucified. It’s Christ plus nothing. Further, He takes our brokenness before Him and all our feeble efforts – everything done in His name – and, in Him, they will be turned to an unutterable weight of glory. In that final day, when the sons of God are revealed, there will be wholeness and healing and final sinlessness and absolute glory.

So how does this translate? How do we take our children by the hand and walk with them on the threshold of eternity?

Our great duty is to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. That's the crux of everything. And secondly, flowing from that, to love our neighbor as ourselves. To love our husbands and children. Obsessed, consumed – with the love of God spilling off our tongues and out our fingertips. Not getting distracted, but genuinely and faithfully studying the ways of the Beloved. Loving what He loves, hating what He hates, and living it all out in the presence of our children. Looking always to Christ, for it’s only in Him that we can be faithful.

John 10:7-15: “Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.”

And Isaiah 40:10-11: “Behold, the Lord God shall come with a strong hand, and His arm shall rule for Him; behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him. He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those who are with young.”

In life and death, Jesus has us, we belong to Him. And we have Jesus.

In life and death, Jesus has our children, they belong to Him. And they have Jesus.

And therein lies peace and joy – deep peace and piercing, yearning joy.

May we be faithful stewards, always pointing to Him. May we rest and trust in Him. And may we trust that He loves our children – His lambs – and will lead them all their days.

Hebrews 13:20-21: “Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”