This year I got to attend a preschool Thanksgiving feast. The tables were decorated with hand-print turkeys and “I’m thankful for…” placemats. The students and their guests and teachers all sat at tables with grown-up chairs and plastic silverware. The little friend I sat beside is one of my favorite students. He’s three, and so tiny that his eyes were just above the level of the table.
He’s a busy little fellow – hands in everything, sly little grin looking back at you as you tell him not to do exactly what he’s doing. In many ways he is a typical precocious three-year-old. But in some ways he is not. He has trouble with his motor skills – walking straight, grasping things – and trouble with his speech, all likely due to head trauma he received as a baby, sustaining injuries that sent a man to jail.
My little friend will face an uphill battle his whole life to overcome the adversities that were caused by someone who should have been his protector. But he has the spirit of a fighter, and he has a good family now, and a good teacher, and good therapists, and a good future.
And good food…our feast that day had turkey and little potatoes, stuffing, rolls, and green beans, with McDonald’s apple pies for dessert. I helped him scoop it all on his plate. He said no to the turkey, but I put a slice on his plate anyway. He responded by picking it up with both hands and dropping it firmly back into the serving dish. Definitely. No. Turkey.
When he started to eat, the potatoes were a bit much to handle, so I put my hands on top of his and showed him how to hold the potato with his fork so that he could cut it with his knife. Oh boy, did he like that! Together we cut all of his small potatoes into really tiny little pieces. Then – joy of all joys – I showed him how to cut his roll in half and spread butter on it. He laughed with delight at the pleasure of spreading butter. He spread butter up, down, and all around that roll. He got butter in his hair and on his face and all over his hands. Butter was the best thing he’d ever played with. He wasn’t at all interested in eating the butter, just spreading it. He kept asking for more butter and got very upset with me when I told him to eat the butter he already had. As if butter were for eating, silly lady!
As we ate (and spread) our Thanksgiving feast, I was overcome with the thought that my little friend probably shouldn’t have even lived through the trauma he endured as a baby. I squeezed him close and leaned down to whisper in his ear – getting butter on my cheek – “God has big plans for you!” He didn’t hear me, he just looked up at me with those charming brown eyes and asked again for more butter.
I smiled at his persistence and I breathed a silent prayer to the God who formed this brave precious boy in his mother’s womb.
…to the God who held his tiny body, preserving his life as evil tried to destroy it.
…to the God who turns the worst acts of man into avenues for glorious hope.
…to the God who has a plan and a purpose for this messy little boy with
butter in his hair.
…to the God who sent his own Son into this dangerous, hateful world, knowing
full well what it would cost him to destroy forever the grip of evil.
We see beautiful pictures this time of year of light shining softly on a baby in a manger. But we don’t often think about the truth that the innocent baby in the manger was born into a world of violence; a world that kicks fragile babies in the head and tears families apart.
That baby in the manger had to flee with his family to Egypt to escape a king that wanted him murdered. That same baby would grow up to be executed violently in a demonstration of Roman power.
But the cross wasn’t just evidence of how violent and evil men can be to one another. It is also evidence of how much God hates sin. I think there is a part of all of us that wants God to just be a nice guy – to tolerate our disobedience and selfishness and pat us on the head. I don’t want to have to admit that the rebellion in my heart makes me deserve to be separated from his perfect holiness for all eternity. But it does.
Ultimately, when faced with the hate and ugliness in our world, the reality is that I don’t want a nice-guy God. I want a God who despises evil so much he can’t ignore it. And I want a God who is brilliant enough to destroy sin without destroying the people who sin. Because here’s his choice: wipe out everyone who has ever broken even the most basic moral laws (which definitely includes me) or take all of that sin upon himself in one outrageous act of self-sacrifice, breaking the power of evil permanently and finally.
That baby in the manger who grew up to be the man on the cross was no accidental victim. He came to become the embodiment of sin so that God’s full wrath against evil could be turned on himself, bearing the unbearable.
For me.
For my little friend.
Even for his abuser.
And for you.
saving the dandelions 