Note from Jed's Desk (#11)
Harbor,
Several weeks ago, I was talking with my son about marriage and children! Without skipping a beat, Brooks looked at me and casually announced, “Dad, I’m not going to have children until I’m fifty because I don’t want to die!” Thinking that having children and death is a strange correlation to make, but respecting the mind of my eleven year-old, I responded... “What do you mean you don’t want to have children until you’re fifty?” Without a hint of hesitation in his voice, he confidently said... “When you have children, you die.”
At this point, I’m thinking to myself, “Brooks, you have no idea how profound that is!” Thankfully, I didn’t say that! Instead, I asked one more question! “You die? What do you mean?” To which he replied, “Well, whenever you have children, you get stressed.”
And I’m thinking, “When have your mom and I ever gotten stressed? We never get stressed. NEVER!”
In reality, Brooks is on to something. True Love entails self-sacrifice.
If you really want to love someone, you must be willing to die for them. This is certainly true of parenting, isn’t it? It’s why we no longer cling to the independence we had in college or our early twenties. If we attempt to remain independent of all the restrictions and demands that are part and parcel of parenting, we’ll neglect our children! Instead, we oftentimes stay home on Friday nights! When, before having children, did you ever stay home on a Friday evening and climb into bed at 9pm? And when we do go out, instead of having filet mignon, we get chips and salsa and spend the rest on diapers. Rather than going to Aruba for a week, we go to Story Land! At the same time, isn’t it true that if someone offered us an all-expenses-paid trip to Aruba, we’d all experience internal struggle and most of us would be on the plane five hours later? Why the change?
Because parents oftentimes sacrifice what once mattered to love the little ones who now matter most! And even though it can feel like dying at times, we do it joyfully because we love them.
The gospel tells us that in Christ, God became a man, and humbled himself to death on the cross! He gave his life for what mattered to him the most...you and me!
Why? Because you die for the things you love.
As we gather to celebrate our risen King, we rejoice in His life while remembering his death knowing that it’s impossible to have the empty tomb without the cross.
So...in the week ahead, may your heart be captivated by the One who gave everything for you and may you respond by offering Him everything in return.
Finally, because we are committed to Helping People Find Their Way Back To God, we’re willing to give up what used to matter to love what truly matters – people.
For that reason, we’ll encourage you to do two things...
First, prayerfully invite someone to join you for a worship gathering this weekend.
Never underestimate what God can do through a simple invitation.
Second, to those of us who call Harbor our home (and are physically able), please park in the back and sit toward the front. It’s a very simple way to love the guests coming through our doors for the first time.
We love you and look forward to celebrating Easter with you.
