Theology for My Sons (and me) - part 1

“My son, do not reject the discipline of the Lord or loathe His reproof, For whom the Lord loves He reproves, Even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.”

-Proverbs 3:11-12

My sons fight outside their weight class when it is time for reproof. When we lock horns, they are quickly conquered and gently reprimanded with love and the enduring truth of the Gospel. A great deal of the time I am confident they would prefer a swift smack to the hand and less intentionality — but that cannot be our dynamic. Like me (as a child… and an adult) my boys do not require a punitive change of behavior, they need to be walked into the gracious correction that Jesus lovingly offers.

Let me offer a recent example…

The offense matters not, and you will shortly see why.

The eldest of our children, let’s call him Micah (because that’s his name), has exploded into a petulant tirade of strained screaming. This is a very rare occurrence for our boy, not because he is incapable of it, but because he is an empiricist; he has learned how to leak out his disobedience in small moments, knowing that his parents are slower to discipline if we can cheaply justify his behavior.

This one was unable to ignore, however. From across the house I can hear the venomous vitriol spewing from his mouth. His body is almost convulsing with outrage, as if a series of cramps have overtaken his whole body — he is convinced that he has been wronged and he clearly believes someone else needs to pay the consequences.

After a hug and an opportunity to calm his little limbs and spasmodic sobbing, it is time to lovingly drag Micah into the Gospel Octagon.

An abridged version of our conversation would have a transcript that repeatedly reads accordingly:

Why were you yelling at your momma?

…Because Benji (the brother) made me….

No. Why were you yelling?

…Because Benji made me…

I will protect you from the number of recurrences and the circuitous path marked by footprints exposing a 2-steps forward, 1 and 3/4-steps backwards jaunt. The primarily calm, verbal fisticuffs interaction that ensued chillingly exposed my boy’s heart — and mine as well.

The nugget that lay underneath the surface of a  5-year-old’s bedtime fit perfectly matches my own sinful nature. Micah was outraged that he was confronted and reproved under his reaction to his brother’s unfairness. His heart was hot with anger because of the perceived wrongdoing of another, and his actions were self-justified.

If he (the younger brother) had not done that, Micah’s version of the story goes, I would not have screamed. Since he did that, I had to scream; the situation was unfair! His sinfulness made me respond with anger. His actions forced my hand into the hurt I am feeling. It was the circumstances outside of me that gave me no option but to fight with momma.

It reads a bit outrageously, doesn’t it? The emotional logic of a five-year-old boy exposes an immature view of the world: if someone mistreats me — if the results feel unfair or unpleasant to me — then I should be allowed to react however I want. Oh, the beauty of a clever boy whose frontal lobe has not developed to the point where his excuses are as convincing!

You and I are more experienced in covering up our sin. You and I are better at covering the holes in our stories. You and I are better at covering our sin with a more impenetrably opaque layer of sin that wards off wisdom and correction.

Micah was given a Bible verse that he did not ask for: …There is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man. (Mark 7:15)

My boy needed to hear that sin does not infect like a viral infection; there is not a cloud of sin outside of himself that he must worry about catching. There is no sort of reactionary medical face mask that will protect him from the disease. The deadly sickness of sin exists within his own heart, and it leaks out of him like acid in a split pipe.

My boy needed to hear what I needed to hear: the only person who owns your sin is you. Your sin did not come from someone (or something) else, and it cannot be placed on someone (or something else) around you. The moment that you attempt to pass your sin like a hand-me-down to anyone else, you will hurt someone else, and the recently evacuated spot will be refilled.

Micah was (like I am) in the desperate position where he needed to be walked to the only place where grace can flow. He needed to understand the introductory words of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the poor in spirit (humbled beneath the immovable weight of their own sin), for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 5:3)

His actions exposed his heart. And while he is made in the image of God, he is thoroughly infected by the deadly cancer that introduced mankind to death and will submit us all to her effect: sin. It is not someone else’s sin that needs to be taken; it is his. And there is no one and no place to dump it.

Micah’s sin…like mine…like yours, has to be taken and dealt with. He has no more the ability to heave his sin than he can lift a bus over his head. Someone has to take it, wear it, and conquer it. This is the story of Good Friday and Easter that our family just celebrated: God sent His only Son so that He could pull the unthinkable burden off of my little boy and send it to the grave. This is the Gospel.

But the Gospel does not end at Easter, that is merely the beginning — Easter is the labor and delivery wing of the spiritual hospital. Just like there are other areas in the medical field to stumble back toward throughout life, Jesus calls us to run back to Him for healing daily.

My boy does not need a single fix, he needs new life, and he needs to be connected to the Healer, the Redeemer, the Conquering King every moment of every day. The day that Micah is given a new heart (we pray this day comes), he will have to commit himself to regular check-ins with the One who provided a new life. He will have to take the same sin that won this time, and deliver it to the Lamb who conquered death. He will have to take the sin that bubbles up from his heart and ask his Healer to take it again. He will have to choose death to sin daily so that he is given the freedom to walk in life.

…