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Ein letztes in diesem Jahr…

Das Jahr neigt sich dem Ende zu und im gleichen Maße, in dem man zuversichtlich ins Neue blickt, so schaut man auch zurück auf Vergangenes. Wichtiges und unwichtiges.

Und mir kommt eine lustige Geschichte in den Sinn, die John Ortberg in einer seiner Predigten erzählte. Sie handelt von dem Moment, als Gott die Familie erfand und seinen Engeln dieses Konzept zu erklären versucht.

Sie ist auf englisch – aber es lohnt sich!

 

Imagine one day God is there with His angels and God says,

I have an idea. I am going to create the family.

And an angel says,

What is it?

God says,

I’m very excited about this idea. Of course, I’m excited about all my ideas. One of the great things about being God is you just never have a bad idea, but this one is kind of unique. The family is going to be the way that I connect people, just kind of bind them together in love. And it will work like this. Adult people, grown-up people will sign up to take care of a tiny little stranger.

And the angel asks,

Are they going to get paid?

God says,

No, actually that little stranger is going to cost them a lot of money. Not only that, that little stranger won’t even be able to talk at first. It will just cry and scream and you’ll have to guess why. It will make you lose sleep. It will make messes all the time that you have to clean up. It will be utterly vulnerable. You have to watch that kid 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Then when it’s two that little stranger will be able to say words like “no” and “mine” and it will throw tantrums and then I’m thinking about inventing puberty. I’m not too sure about that one yet, but if I do, they’ll get these strange things called hormones that will go crazy; odd things will happen to their bodies. They’ll get pimples, their voices will crack, their limbic systems will melt down. Then they’ll grow up and just when they are mature and beautiful and interesting and able to contribute, they will move away. That’s the idea. What do you all think?

The angels kind of shuffle around and look down at their feet. Who’s going to tell Him? I don’t want to tell Him.

Lord, nobody is going to want that. Who would sign up for that? Why would they do it?

And here’s where God really gets excited. This is the cool part.

They won’t even know why. They’ll just look at that little body, they’ll look down at those little hands and those little feet and they’ll think that that tiny little stranger is beautiful, even though he looks like every other baby and even though all babies look like Winston Churchill. They’ll think that this baby is beautiful. And then one day that little stranger will smile just at them and they’ll think they’ve won the lottery. They won’t have words to describe it.

And one day that little stranger will say “Dada” and “Mama.” It will say “Dada” first because daddies are just so self-sacrificial and nurturing and noble and how I love them. But Moms are good too. So it will say “Dada” and “Mama” and then one day those little arms and hands will open up and they’ll reach out and they’ll wrap themselves around that neck and it’s going to feel to that grown up like for the first time now they understand why arms and hands were created.

What it’s really all about in this kind of sneaky way—what’s it’s all about is just grace. Grace is at the core, fundamental to the universe. Grace is who God is. We sometimes think about grace as if it’s just the forgiveness of sin and, of course, grace includes the forgiveness of sin, but it is way bigger. God was gracious way before anybody ever sinned. Grace just refers to the gratuitous goodness, the generous, self-giving love of God and that’s why He created the family.

Children, the new generation, will learn that they are loved and prized and belong before they have ever done a single thing to earn or deserve it. Then grown ups, God says “parents,” the old generation, they will learn that when they give they will receive. When they give the most, they receive the most, that giving is the best. They will learn about My Kingdom. That’s going to be the beauty of the generations together. It will be grace expressed, grace incarnate, and then one day when I tell them, human race, I’m your Father, you are My daughter, you are My son.

They will get it and they will be undone. It will just mess them. They will just be wrecked. They will be overwhelmed. That’s a family.

In diesem Sinne, frohes neues Jahr!

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