I was picking up my son from work, and across the street was a woman wearing a sandwich board. On one side it said that God punishes sinners, and on the other that Jesus was the only way to escape God’s wrath.
If the goal of the sandwich board was to provoke discussion, then it accomplished its purpose. David and I talked about the message all the way home. His comments reflected on a punishing, condemning God. I expressed my sorrow that the bluntness of the message prevented the very result it was trying to achieve. Because if the sandwich board was supposed to draw people closer to God, then it failed utterly, portraying God as a bully and reducing the person of Jesus Christ to get-out-of-jail-free card.
Essentially the message was biblically correct: yes, God hates sin; and willful, unrepentant practitioners of sin will reap the harvest of the disrespect for God that they have sown. And yes, Jesus’ death on the cross provides the only way to salvation, His having taken God’s wrath upon Himself to spare sinners. So themessage was accurate.
But the medium… sound bites and bumper sticker statements cannot adequately portray the gospel of Christ, any more than black paint can adequately portray a flower garden. Sandwich boards and bumper stickers have limited real estate; they lack room for nuances.
Like mercy. Like grace.
When I pointed out that the message was correct but the way it was presented was probably ineffective or (as he had demonstrated) even counter-productive, David asked why a loving God would allow Himself to be misrepresented in this way. A discussion about free will and man’s brokenness ensued. David allowed that people were, indeed, messed up.
I was groaning inside. This is my agnostic kid. We Christians sometimes forget that people who don’t know God personally for opinions about Him and Jesus from one or two (often out-of-context) exposures. Perhaps a Christian is heard justifying cheating on their taxes. Or a person professes to follow Jesus’ way of respect, mercy, love and discipline while living a lifestyle in blatant opposition to Christ’s message. Such exposures do more damage to God’s reputation in the eyes of non-believers than anything written in the Bible.
I explained that God desires a personal relationship with each one of us, and that He can see past all the mess-ups, but that sometimes people over-emphasize one of God’s attributes and end up distorting the message without realizing it. David said something then that I will remember for a long time. It will come back to me when I allow my anger to slip, when I put chores over people in importance, when my behavior is dismissive or crude or judgmental. He had adopted a mock stern tone and a wagging finger – the disapproving parent – and as he scowled ferociously he said, “Stop scaring My children!”
Have I scared one of God’s children today?
Have you?
