I remember the first time, as a child, that I was sent on an errand to the neighborhood grocery store. I had been to that store before with my father. While there, all I did was gaze intently at the jars of delectables placed out front and pester him for what I wasn’t allowed to have. So, when he asked me to go on my own, I don’t recall spending time mulling it over. He told me, so I went. I felt a certain comfort and joy about his confidence in me, that overcame any trepidations I may have had about my inexperience vis-a-vis the world of trade and commerce. I never deliberated on what he may have deliberated leading up to the decision to let me go on my own. Plus, there were the delectables I could now more than stare at.
The Sending Out
Years later during my own Fatherhood, there have been those moments where I needed to send one of my children out into the world to do a task. Were my children ready? Did they know the way? Would they get lost? Could they handle themselves? Would they know to keep away from strangers? Some of these questions were in the forefront of my mind, others less so. But, at some point I in turn had to make that decision to send my children out on their own. Simple though these errands may have been, they had their place in a larger maturation process that would prepare me (or my children); a process to teach me to live for more than my own wants or needs, for that eventual “sending out on my own”. For that time when I would leave my Father and Mother and cling to my wife to become one flesh (Gen 2:24).
There is a certain love, pride, and joy in me when I reflect on how my father prepared me, to the extent he could, and to the extent I was willing, for the world. Limited though that analogy may be, I can only begin to imagine the love, pride and joy Jesus conveyed when he spoke about his Father, in conversations with his disciples. True, the content of those conversations would sustain theological and epistemological discourses for centuries. But I am certain that it was an infinite depth of love, pride, and joy in His Father that the disciples heard and felt in Jesus’ voice when he related those profound truths.
And the Guy Gets the Girl!
I must remind myself to think and feel as the disciples did, setting aside mere rational analyses, and focus on his voice relating those words of truth. Pretend for a moment that you are there. Listen as the Son talks about his perfect Father, about the many dwelling places in his Father’s mansion, that His Father wishes to take us in and love us as His own children. This isn’t braggadocio, there is no guile there, no hidden agenda, no Machiavellian scheme. Just an invitation to be the children of His Father with Him, in Him and through Him.
The triune Godhead created all, not out of need, but in a sheer act of love. The Son offers, with that same love, with this divine inexplicable desire to share, the riches of the Kingdom, with us, the unworthy. Jesus’ invitation is to share in the same Fatherhood that prepared Him for the World, not for some self-serving narcissistic pagan god like impulse. But, rather, for a kenotic self-sacrifice, in divine obedience to the Father. Jesus comes into the world, and albeit for a moment, “leaves” his Father and clings to his bride, so that the two could become one flesh in that same Fatherhood. The amazing fact is that we, in living out this model of self-sacrificial obedience to the Father, aid Christ in this divine union. And what’s not to love about a guy-loses-girl-then-gets-the-girl story that spans eternity and then some, particularly when you are a key player in it. Amen.
Never thought about Jesus leaving His father (and Mother in a way) cleaving to His bride the church – and becoming One with her. It’s Genesis all over again. God can not help Himself, He loves to create.
Always a good read. Thanks. Zach