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Monday, December 11, 2006
Do You Hear What I Hear?
Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 3:1-6
Sometimes it seems a prophet just can't depend on God to keep his promises. Or make good on his threats. Either way, John the Baptist got the surprise of his prophetic life when Jesus finally went to work on fulfilling John's dire predictions.
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WHAT THEY DID FOR LOVE
I took my kid sister for a joyride in our father's car. I was 16, she was 13. It was a 3 year old Pontiac sedan with power everything.
You might be surprised that she and I remember differently just how we decided to take the car out for a spin. The truth must lie somewhere in between.
Our family had dinner guests. Patty and I were restless, hanging out in the back yard while dessert and table talk dragged on forever inside. Next thing you know, there I was in the driver's seat with her riding shotgun.
Funny thing. I didn't know how to drive.
A block from home we crossed the drawbridge into downtown, where I proceeded verrry carefully this way and that, finally heading back home across the bridge. A fast left turn, half a block, then a quick right into the alley behind our house.
Well, not exactly into the alley.
I sideswiped a power pole at the alley's entrance, over-corrected, then plowed into the back wall of a store on the opposite side of the alley.
The motor went dead. So did my hope of any deliverance.
Down the alley came my father on the run, followed by Mom and our dinner guests. Before he reached us we heard a siren getting louder by the second.
Well. After taking a punch at my jaw, Dad sized up quickly that Patty wasn't hurt and the car wasn't totalled. So he laid off of punishing me -- for the time being. By the time the police arrived, he composed himself to do his part in their inquiry about the accident. Before the episode ended, he absolutely surprised me by getting in the face of a reporter who'd begun browbeating me about endangering my sister's life.
Long story short...
Dad made sure I realized my culpability by making me pay off the deductible on his insurance, do extra chores around the house, and generally show myself responsible for a long time to come.
He also arranged with his boss to put me to work after school for enough weeks to pay the insurance bill. And he stood up for me when Mom or my aunt would mutter that I'd proven once and for all that I was a punk headed for a life of trouble. Then he was right there with me in juvenile court when the judge sternly put me on probation for half a year.
Amazingly, I was not out there all on my own. My father, whom I'd betrayed and hurt, was right there by my side each step of the way on my guilt-ridden journey.
A year or so later, I became a Christian. The old gospel story didn't need a lot of explaining for me to "get" it. For I already had a real-life reference point as to how justice and mercy could work together in Jesus' sacrifice of himself to save guilty people from all the bad consequences they deserve.
It was as if a cartoon lightbulb blinked on above my head, a single word inscribed on it: DAD.
Salvation by surprise... Tenacious love... Absolutely free of charge, yet costing everything you've got when you come to appreciate it properly.
We're close to another Christmas. A day for giving and accepting gifts of affection and appreciation. Amidst all that, I hope you'll remember to celebrate God's greatest gift of all. His own Son who caught the world by surprise when he faced down wrath with mercy, and paid off punishment with sacrificial love.
Like my Dad, only more so.
posted by Jack Buckley at
12:19 PM
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