What the Children Need From Us Most of All
While most editions of our Let’s Do Lunch series are focused on being around a brief devotional to bring a bit of fresh air and reflection to your day, while keeping with this idea today’s is a little bit different, for today’s addresses an issue that is on so many of our hearts and minds - either because we are in the middle of it or will be getting to it soon.
Back-to-school season is upon us. Unfortunately, this issue, which should be a rallying point for the community and country has become yet another object to be tossed to-and-fro in the overheated political and social wars that are 2020 in America. However, I know you and I are called to be better than that - we are called to address the issues of the day not by getting sucked into the overheated rhetoric that rips communities apart but rather by rooting ourselves in the witness of scripture.
Trying to find a way to thread this needle has been, sufficeth to say, a wee bit of a challenge, because we cannot control how people hear things, regardless of our best intentions. As I sat down to compose this message, though, I could not help but be drawn to an incident from Jesus’ infancy - an incident that came to mind earlier this month when our Sunday school class hosted a baby shower for a couple in our class expecting their second baby boy soon.
We see in the second chapter of Luke’s gospel the story of how Jesus’ parents, Mary and Joseph, were faithful in taking the newborn boy to the temple for the requisite purification ceremony.
Little did they imagine, I presume, to find a devout old man named Simeon, who had been told that he would see the Lord’s Messiah (the promised one) before he died. Luke tells us that Simeon was guided by the Spirit to the temple at this time and, upon seeing the Christ child, took him in his arms and celebrated the presence of the savior.
All well and good - but sometimes we overlook a very salient point in all this. Verse 33 records the following observation: “And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him.”
Why does that matter in this back to school season that is like none other?
Simple. There is no telling what God has to say over and/or about the children that make up our communities through we, the people of the church. There is no telling what God might have to say to parents of these children through we, the people of the church. Can you imagine the amazement of Mary and Joseph as they witnessed this encounter?
Where are we going with this? That, too, is simple.
Lord knows there is enough rhetorical dynamite held tightly together by Primacord to blow the lid off anything. You could make the case that is already happening more than we care to admit - or maybe have even been complicit in detonating.
Maybe it is time to worry less about all the verbal bomb-throwing surrounding the school question in 2020 and focus more on how is it we can speak Godly truths into these children as those who are surrounding these children and their families.
Let us be people of prayer. Let us be people of encouragement. Let us be people of peace. Let us be people who have as their sole desire to be instruments of God’s peace in ways that can be found nowhere else.
As we close today, I want to invite you to begin this journey with a prayer that we put on the tags we distributed to our children and teachers during this year’s backpack blessing:
Grace & Peace,
Lamar