Of Bloodlines and Hurricanes ...

In the mind of a toddler, what his/her daddy does for a living defines how secure the toddler feels when confronted with the inherent dangers of life.  Imagine the toddler who belongs to Hulk Hogan, when faced with a threat, that toddler is going to be pretty sure Hulk can crush it, no matter what it is.  Strength is something a toddler understands pretty easily (it is what they have a very small amount of, and what dad demonstrates on a much larger scale).  Dad opens bottles and doors and can lift me way over his head without breaking a sweat.  The same may hold true for mom, or rather supermom, from a different perspective.  The toddler who belongs to supermom, may have a harder time figuring out just how smart she really is.  After all when someone is smarter than you (at any age) it is impossible to tell just how much smarter, they really are.  But what a toddler can understand is how no matter what the challenge, supermom is always there and able to meet it, no matter how hard or even impossible that challenge might seem.  From the toddler’s point of view; I am always fed, clothed, played with, able to sleep, and taken all over the world on any given day of the week.  This toddler is sure if there is ever a problem, just throw it at mom, she can do anything.  And if dad is able to crush any threat, and mom able to overcome any threat, I will be having the cushy life a snowflake like me deserves.  Or at least a life without nearly the fear my fellows all seem to carry.  Any wonder why I might think my bloodline is a ticket to where I will wind up in life?

In the mind of a growing child, dad and mom appear to “belong” to me.  Beyond having my needs provided for, their love becomes the only thing I crave.  They appear to enjoy giving it, and I can hardly ever get enough of it, so there is a win-win situation.  It is hard to imagine life like this being any other way.  It is hard to think of “my” parents and “my” family as being any other way than that.  Sharing their time with other priorities (or worse their affection) is chief on my naughty list.  Seems to me work can handle itself.  And groceries are always right where we need them, if not in our cupboards, then on the shelf at the market only minutes from where we live.  Time with me should be more important, and most of the time it is.  Is it any wonder why my ideas of bloodlines simply become more entrenched as I grow and they deepen in demonstration?  Funny thing is that while I always belonged to them, as I grow, their fondest wish is that they will always belong to me.  An adult child who still calls mom, and talks to dad, long past when needs arise is precious in the hearts of their parents more than they can know, until it one day happens to them.  And from the parent’s perspective, my bloodline is to tie the legacy of my past and its love, to the future in ties that only deepen over time.  And “family” comes to mean something more.

I cannot say myself whether this phenomenon deepens in harder times, or in times of plenty.  As a child I never knew we experienced harder times, it was just my life.  As a parent I did everything I could to insure the same experience for my own children.  But I also came to know “harder” is a relative description and I am certain my parents knew them on a scale I hope never to know, and hope they never see again.  And over time the sacrifice in a bloodline is revealed, going back up the tree farther than the eye can see.  For myself, even though they split up later, my mom was supermom, and my dad was a Los Angeles policeman (now retired) who carried a gun and a badge in addition to what looked to a toddler as infinite strength.  So lest injustice dare to raise its ugly head, the refrain of this toddler was to look it straight in the eye and warn; that my dad was a policeman and the perpetrator was going to be taken straight to prison should it persist.  (The entire court system was lost on toddler me, it was simply, you do something bad, my dad escorts you to prison in handcuffs, forever, or when I told him it was OK to let you out).  This was a weapon I was never in short supply of wielding.  And in my mind, it kept everyone largely in line when I was young.  A bloodline my children would have to step back one generation to use, “grandpa” could still carry out this threat, dad worked in “IT” whatever that was, so proved no use on the playground when things started to get out of hand.

And you can imagine, the heart of any parent takes pride, when their children at any age acknowledge them, and increase that sense of belonging (both ways).  But where it comes to our God, we sometimes get too wrapped up in the analogy of “our” families to understand what “His” family actually looks like.  In the time of Luke this was true as well.  Jewish sense of bloodline was more than just tradition, and perhaps a father-to-son set of skills training that kept up survival of the clan.  Jesus was a carpenter, because that is what Joseph could teach him to be.  Bloodline however was a tracing of ancestors all the way back to Abraham and the promise of a unique relationship between forefather and God Himself.  Indeed bloodline had come to supplant personal responsibility or opportunity in the participation of a relationship with God.  Since dad knew God, I don’t have to.  Since grandpa knew God even better, my bloodline will carry me over the finish line (even if what I do may not be all that kosher).  A bloodline then of more than 2000 years in the faith becomes something more solid than concrete where it came to salvation, or the need to embrace the word of God in my particular heart.

Can you imagine then, how much more the brothers and sisters of Jesus might have felt, knowing who He was and how close they had been with Him their entire lives?  Or the parents of Jesus?  Mary and Joseph literally spent their entire lives serving, training, and caring for the Son of God.  This should have earned them some sort of special status right?  Luke knew it was time to dispel these ideas, and he wanted to insure his friend Theophilus would not rely on them either.  So picking up in the eighth chapter in verse 19 the short lesson reads … “Then came to him his mother and his brethren, and could not come at him for the press. [verse 20] And it was told him by certain which said, Thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to see thee. [verse 21] And he answered and said unto them, My mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God, and do it.”  Yikes!  All that service to Jesus from baby to now, and He seems to cast it aside as being no less important to Him, than the common stranger who is willing to sit at His feet, listen, and then embrace the word of God in action.

But then, the “family” of God from the perspective of God, is every living man or woman ever created by His finger since the dawn of time to long past its end.  The spark of life still finds its source in our Creator God, who then is our true Father, no matter who dad was.  Each of us is brother or sister, nothing more, but nothing less.  So the blood-relatives of Jesus who thought they were special, were special, but no more special than those sitting at the feet of Jesus that day.  Bloodline however would not save any of them.  Listening, accepting, and doing the word of God would.  Doing being rapped up in coming to Jesus for the re-creation we all need, to be remade in harmony with His Law of Love and His Father, our Father.  That distinction defines the difference between erring child choosing to live in pain, and penitent child who chooses for Jesus to take them out of their pain, here and now, and for all time.  And upon accepting this as nothing more than a toddler, we finally find the door to the Kingdom of God in the here and now.

Imagine the lack of fear that might bring your toddler mind, to KNOW beyond all shadow of a doubt, that Jesus is your true Father, no matter who your dad is/was.  Toddlers who have little fear are comfortable anywhere.  When they get tired, they sleep.  When I was that age, sleep was not a problem for me.  No matter where the locale or conditions.  My mother used to tell me that when she and my dad went to dinner parties with friends in their homes, I would find her chair, curl up underneath it, and fall asleep no matter what the commotion was that carried on round about.  When I was a little older, my mother and I lived in Loma Linda California, which even then was subject to more than a few earthquakes.  Not that they bothered me.  I slept right through all of them.  Earthquakes strong enough to tear up streets and flip refrigerators upside down, and me sleeping like a baby without a care in the world.  This held true when we moved to Kentucky and went through Tornado’s.  For me it was just another night to sleep through.  Jesus would handle all those problems, and Jesus did.  Massive destruction all around, but none of it seemed to find me or my family.  His love, not my deservedness.  But what was consistent was a total lack of fear in me, even when my mother could not hide her own nerves.

But perhaps the difference between toddler and adult is that adult has been educated to know just how dangerous life can be, while toddler is able to remain blissfully unaware of that danger.  Now imagine what it was like for Jesus who knew His Father is The Father God.  Makes Hulk Hogan and supermom, look like a novice.  Imagine what the protective instinct of Father God must be for His own child, and then perhaps by extension you can imagine how He feels about you.  What is certain is that hurricanes will blow.  The devil has always made sure of that.  But when they blow, where will your mind be?  If what you ponder is the very real danger you are in, your mind leans to that of adult, educated to fear.  But if despite your hurricane you are able to be at peace, your mind leans to that of toddler, certain in His love despite what fury nature or Satan can muster up.  It takes trust to function like the toddler.  It takes an abandon of the logical, in favor of the miraculous.  And to pull it off, it takes certainty.  For just a show of words leaves you claiming peace, while the ulcer grows within you from the fear you try to hide.

Luke continues His lesson in verse 22 saying … “Now it came to pass on a certain day, that he went into a ship with his disciples: and he said unto them, Let us go over unto the other side of the lake. And they launched forth. [verse 23] But as they sailed he fell asleep: and there came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they were filled with water, and were in jeopardy.”  Experienced fishermen knew about storms, and microbursts, and this looked to their minds like any hurricane you will ever face.  The boat was taking on water, and the fury of the storm told them they were about to die.  And so where was Jesus?  Jesus was sound asleep with no fear at all, for He went to sleep KNOWING His Father was in charge of His life or death or whatever may come.  Fear would not make any of that any different.  And frankly fear was not needed when your Father is that Father.  But Peter and the others did not think of the family of God in this respect.  They knew their own fathers, and none of them could conquer nature.  So they finally turned to Jesus when they figured out their own efforts had left them facing a collective doom.

Luke continues in verse 24 saying … “And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm. [verse 25] And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.”  The storm or hurricane or microburst was real.  It needed attention.  Jesus simply calms it, like wiping off a raindrop from your forehead.  Then He asks the profound question of His disciples, where is your faith?  The disciples did not need faith in Jesus to solve this problem, they could have simply asked the Father of Jesus to handle it.  But they did not believe that Father would hear them, or would do anything about it.  They believed that Father did not really care about them, or value them as any kind of sons.  They were wrong.  Jesus was here to prove just how wrong they were.  The God who is our Father does love us more than any earthly version of a Father ever could.  This test was easily solved by asking it of the God who loves us.  Yes, Jesus was in the boat.  But God His Father and our Father was looking on just as intently from Heaven.  That Father permits storms like these to blow, in order to teach us trust, to teach us to rely upon Him no matter the outcome.  He lets it happen to teach us to ask for help instead of relying upon ourselves to save ourselves; when it is in fact impossible to do that for humans.

The disciples were more freaked out about Jesus commanding nature, and nature listening, than they were about His Father being our Father as well.  Jesus just proved what God had in mind to do.  Why fear?  Jesus did not.  And Jesus was meant to die for us at the end of this mission, so it is not as if danger to His life was not real.  Jesus simply trusted His Dad with both His life and His death.  After you trust like that, fear will leave the building.  Then too look at what God did.  He fixed it.  You cannot.  But for Him, no big deal.  So why spend so much effort and fear trying to fix what you cannot, and instead just trust in that Love to fix what it obviously wants to fix.  If we could count the number of prayers that WERE answered, we might be ashamed of ourselves for not remembering them when the next hurricane blows.  Add to that number, the number of times our Father God saved us, when we did not even know we were on death’s pathway.  Our very lives are the miracle.  Yet one little real danger and we behave as if this is the first time we pray for safety with a God who has some sort of spotty record.  His record is pure, even if our accounting or our memory are shabby.  I think it is time for us to let fear leave, and let trust in Dad takes it place.

And as for bloodlines; ours should be amended to include Jesus as our Father and Creator in a one to one relationship that works.  He allows me to be a toddler.  I get to be toddler in return.  It is not the bloodline then of my earthly family that warrants me anything in His Kingdom.  But it is my bloodline with Jesus and His Father God that offers certainty in words like eternal, and joy, and bliss-from-service I have yet to fully understand.  It is the bloodline of Christ that describes life beyond the pain and death of this world and my enemy.  An end to evil.  An end to the evil in me.  That is what my bloodline offers, for it was the very blood of Jesus that flowed to keep eternal hurricanes from ever touching me again.  He took my fate, to offer me a new one, the one He had in mind.  Let us find ways to teach our children of this bloodline connection, so that they become toddlers once again, and together we see fear depart from us forevermore.  Our Dad is His Dad.