Singing to a beloved turned away

I was privileged to have been invited to a party for a precious baby boy’s first birthday. It was absolutely wonderful to celebrate this event with such a beautiful family – to smile together after a year’s worth of love, dedication, time and energy poured into the life of this small child.

At one point, the father took out his guitar and began singing a song he wrote just for his son’s first birthday. It was wonderfully written and performed but the young child didn’t appreciate the precious gift – and who could blame him for turning his back on his father and playing with his toys instead? He is, after all, only a single year old.

I smiled as I watched this scene, partly because this is one of the very rare circumstances where such blatant disregard could be regarded warmly, partly because the song was so wonderful and partly because I couldn’t help but hear the echoes of something else.

A loving father doting on his oblivious beloved…

Not only has he already poured his all, his very life into this child of his, but the father continues to sing over him, crafting new melodies, new words of adoration, new songs each and every day – this in spite of the fact that this child fails to comprehend any of this.

His nascent ears are still too deaf to truly hear, his young eyes still too clouded to see, his budding heart still too numb to sense the songs of good love being sung for him – just for him.

The father’s love for the child is not fueled by, seeking or dependent on the son’s love, or even acknowledgment of him. It just is.

As the toddler matures he’ll understand and appreciate his father’s love more, and as he looks back will realize, amazingly, that this love was just as ardent yesterday as it is today, just as zealous now as it was then.

And the father continues…

"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." - 1 John 4:10-11

"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die — but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." - Romans 5:6-8

Earning death, receiving life

I just read Romans 6:23 during my lunch break and it blew a fuse in my mind:

"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Wages = what one works and strives hard for

Free gift = what one does nothing to deserve yet receives anyway

Can you imagine if your paycheck or degree was replaced by a paper bag filled with fermented fecal matter? Yet this isn't even close to what the Bible says our situation was.

We used to be people who worked incredibly hard to earn death - not money, fame, comfort, peace or joy, which we thought we were working for. Now, we are counted as those who do (and should) not (have to) work at all, and our reward for that is eternal gift, at no cost to us. (The last two words there are infinitely important.)

This is our salvation, this is our gospel, this is our God.