February 15, 2012

Pierced

Tammy L. Priest

Calvary Baptist Church

February 15, 2012

My son hates pierced ears.

Not that I ever knew this, mind you. I’ve had pierced ears since long before my fifth-grader entered my life. In fact, he loved my earrings so much as a baby that I – as most moms do – had to stop wearing anything that dangled from my earlobes, or suffer the consequences.

Okay, I guess I should clarify. My son doesn’t really mind earrings, it’s the piercing he can’t deal with. But we only discovered this about our firstborn when we started talking about his younger sister getting her ears pierced.

You see, to our great joy, our daughter had professed her personal faith in Christ, going beyond Bible stories and Sunday School lessons to grasping her personal need for a Savior, and she wanted to be baptized.

My husband and I decided that, in honor of our daughter’s baptism – as she became independent in her personal walk of faith – we would allow her to get her ears pierced.

I wrote her a long letter, recalling God’s instructions to servants who wished to commit themselves to their master for life: to have their ear pierced against the doorframe of the house, in front of the town elders (Exodus 21:5-6).

I told our daughter that in the same way, every time she changed her earrings, she would be reminded that she has pledged herself to God, serving and trusting Him as her good and perfect and loving Master.

Now, we knew this would gross her brother out a bit, so we decided to have it done while he was away at camp for a week. Our girl fearlessly presented herself to the woman at the boutique and didn’t shed a single tear – although her eyes grew mighty wide after the first earring punched through!

By the time her brother was to come home from camp, the rest of us had already gotten used to our daughter’s new look. So when we went to camp on pick-up day, we didn’t give the earrings a second thought.

Until he saw her. The second my son laid eyes on his sister, he looked away and moaned.

For the next twenty-four hours, he couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t even be in the same room with her. And it wasn’t out of anger or judgment. He was just so repulsed at even the thought of it that he could not get close to her.

She cried. He cried. And the more she cried at wanting to be with her big brother, the more he cried at his inability to be with her. My son chose to spend most of the next two days in his room, or at least in a separate part of the house.

It was the most gut-wrenching thing I’ve ever seen.

As I helplessly watched this scenario unfold, it struck to me that this was exactly the scene in the Garden. In particular, three things came into vivid focus.

First – like my son, but infinitely more so – the Father was so repulsed at Adam’s and Eve’s sin that He simply could not be near them. Just like one drop of acid would render pure water contaminated, our Holy God simply can’t touch anything imperfect, or His perfection would be compromised.

Because of their sin, Adam and Eve couldn’t even look at their Father’s face anymore.

“…you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” Exodus 33:20 NIV

Second – like my daughter – mankind has longed – ever since the exile from the Garden – to be close to the Father again, to have Him look lovingly upon us. But it just isn’t in Him. And so we grieve deeply.

In fact, as I watched my children walk through that mess, it was very easy for me to relate to my daughter’s despair. How many times in my early life did I feel the chasm between me and God and long to jump across it?

And what inexpressible joy when I found that, once I wrapped myself in Christ, all the Father saw was perfection, and that He can now gather me up in His lap whenever I approach Him.

But even as a believer, walking through painful seasons of life, my spirit groans at being separated from God’s pure, holy, unadulterated Presence. We are still separated from our perfect home and the Father’s visible Face. So often, when I look at life on this earth compared to what ultimately awaits, it weighs me down with sadness.

But to see the anguish on the other side is one I hadn’t imagined before. And it was painful.

That was the last, and most powerful thing that struck me. Because, to be honest, I’d never in my life thought about our separation from God from the perspective of His heart. But, you know, it’s absolutely true.

It wasn’t so much that the Father was angry with Adam & Eve. It was the fact that they’d pierced His heart. Because of what they had unleashed, He couldn’t walk and talk with them again – ever.

If it didn’t actually pain God to be separated from His children, He wouldn’t have done anything about it. He would have just walked away, shaking the dust from His feet, and left us to our own devices.

But the Father loves us – loves you and loves me – so much that separating Himself from us causes Him great anguish. How do we know? Because He was willing to go to such anguishing lengths to remedy it – sending His Son to pay the price of our sin.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 NIV

Watching my children suffer through their inability to be reunited was not something I ever want to repeat. And yet, as we celebrated Valentine’s Day yesterday I was thankful for that difficult parenting experience.

Because, for the first time, I think I’ve finally begun to understand both the curse of my sin and the great depths of God’s love for me – and for you.

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! 1 John 3:1 NIV

The LORD appeared to us in the past saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with lovingkindness.” Jeremiah 31:3 NIV

Prayer

Lord, thank you that Your love of me is greater than my sin. Thank you that You are not a distant judge but a loving, compassionate Father. Help me to know and experience the deep, abiding, love that You have just for me. Amen.