Two Will Become One

Not too long ago my wife took our daughter back to school shopping. The next morning when we were getting ready for school my daughter was wearing what looked to be gym clothes. I said, “Do you have P.E. as the first class of the day?” She rolled her eyes and said, “No!” So I asked why she was wearing workout clothes to school. Do you know what she said? She said, “Dad. These days, everyone wears this.” 

These days. Not those days. We’re talking about: these days.

Saturday morning I was sipping a cup of coffee. I decided to take a look at Instagram. I scrolled a little bit. And finally I said: I don’t get it. I don’t like Instagram. Sheri backed me up. Across the table sat my daughter, she looked at me with pity, she sighed, and said, “Well dad, these days that’s what everyone uses.”

So I detected a pattern! I said, “What do you mean by these days?” My daughter said, “You know about the old times, and the old days. I know about these days.” 

These days. She’s right! She’s absolutely right! Most of the time I have no idea at all what is happening these days. The old tried and true patterns of understanding the world just don’t seem to work as well as they used to. Something has changed that can’t be put back. We are living in different days. We are living in “these days,” not “those days.”

Those days are long gone. Long ago, or in those days according to Hebrews, God used to stay in touch with us, with humanity, through prophets. Prophets were special people who were close to God that would receive messages, words, visions, form God and share them with the people. God would also send angels, messengers with divine power, to carry out special tasks on earth. That was then. That was, those days. 

These days, God has spoken to us through a Child. God birthed a child into the world who has been with God who has been God since the beginning of time. This spitting image of God although far superior to angels, for a time was made low and lowly and walked this earth as any other human being suffering just like any other human. 

If Jesus were alive today and walking the earth he would suffer just like you. He got hungry and thirsty. He suffered physical pain and could even die. He could get Covid. He could die from it. He would have to get vaccinated just like all of us. This pain and suffering wasn’t accidental. It was intentional. It was necessary. For how could he understand and save us from the suffering of these days if he didn’t know the pain and the struggle to live in these days. 

“It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” Hebrews 2:10

The glory of God isn’t being coated in teflon and being bright, shiny, white, sparkling clean. No. The glory of God is revealed in the cross. When Jesus was nailed and hung on the cross there all of creation was placed below his bloody nailed feet. That is the glory of God. That is fully knowing these days.

It’s no picnic being a kid, or a teen. The price our children pay for being in touch with these days is a price I’m not sure anyone would willingly choose. How many of you would like to be twelve again and go to junior high? It’s a privilege to not know what is going on these days. It’s a privilege to have the luxury to shield oneself from the vagaries of life and live in a bubble. Children don’t get that luxury. They, because they have no other choice than to live at the whim of adults, teachers, schools, societies, churches, clubs, teams, cliques, social media trends, they experience first hand exactly what is going on these days. The price they pay is a high price. 

You know that. You know that the children suffer. You know that mental illness is a real issue in young people. You know that with all of the physical comfort, and the vast storehouse of information at their fingertips does not make their life easy. Just the opposite. You can see the children suffering. You know of the isolation and the loneliness they struggle with. Who would choose that? Who would choose to be young again and to endure the bullying, the taunting, the teasing, the carrying of all the abuse, all the dysfunction from all the different homes and then to be collated together, to express it, to process it, and to make meaning out of it? 

Take divorce for instance. Divorce, or the death of a relationship, is something that happens all the time. Of every two couples that get married one will likely end up in divorce. Covid and the pandemic has not made it any easier to be married. People who go through a divorce suffer from shame and judgment, not least from religion. Jesus weighs in on divorce in Mark chapter 10. In a nutshell Jesus uses something like the Two Kingdoms doctrine to understand the reality of divorce. He says that in a perfect spiritual world souls are brought together in a spiritual union. But in the reality of a physically messy sloppy accidental world it doesn’t always work out. It just doesn’t. So Moses, and not just Moses, but every time and every place has had a means by which to mark the end of a relationship. Sometimes people go their separate ways. In other words, in the words of these days, “It is what it is.” 

We were at a birthday party a few months ago. At the party of a one year old baby. You had parents, and you had a collection of step-parents, god parents, biological parents. You could call it a tribe, or a collection of tribes. One older gentleman was there who himself had known divorce, and a complicated family situation. He wore a shirt that said, “It is what it is.” He got a lot of compliments on his shirt that day. And you know what? It was a great party. The food was good, the music was good, the games were fun, and everybody got along pretty well. Why? What had brought together these people? It was a child. 

One time, people were bringing little children to Jesus, and some of the disciples spoke sternly to them. Why? Were they not dressed properly? Were they from “broken homes”? Did their parents not conform to Biblical expectations? Were they brats? Probably all of the above. But none of that mattered to Jesus. Jesus got indignant, he got angry, he said, “Let the little children come unto me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” 

In other words, stop criticizing and judging the children, but rather try to be more like them, If you want any part of Jesus’ salvation. 

Notice what Jesus didn’t say.

He did not say, “Stay married and under no circumstances get divorced or you will not enter the kingdom of God.”

He did not say, “One man must marry one woman or you will not enter into the kingdom of God.” He didn’t say that. 

He didn’t say “Mary your own kind.” 

He didn’t say, “Buy a house first.”

He said, “Suffer the children!” “Do not hinder them!” “To such as these belong the kingdom of God!”

A long time ago, back in those days. The days I am an expert at, because I am 40 years old. God was creating, and God made an earthling. This earthling was a little lower than the angels. And the earthling was alone. So God pinched the earthling and split it into two. God split the earthling into two so that one could help the other, and they wouldn’t have to be alone. God made a man and woman. God did this because no matter how hard the earthling worked it could never work its way out of loneliness. So the earthling was saved by God’s grace, and not by it’s works. God’s grace 

You will not be alone.

Two will become one. 

Two people will fall in love and become one.

Two families will join and become one.

Two communities will combine and become one.

Two countries will become one.

Two parties will become one.

Two churches will combine and become one.