As the Father Has Loved

 Last week was just one of those weeks. A backpacking weekend with men from church was providing some much-needed restoration as we rested and connected next to North Georgia’s beautiful Jack River. Around 11 p.m. on the final night, we were all saying goodnight when one guy said, “Hey guys, my phone is forecasting 3 inches of rain at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning.” We took a look at the rushing river 20 feet from us and the canyon walls around us and made a quick decision to hike through the night. We packed up, and I fell into bed at home at 7 a.m. Sunday morning.

Our midnight hike past Jack River Falls

On Monday, Juniper and I flew to Washington, D.C. for the fun trip we gave her for Christmas. Washington is wonderful but also exhausting. We arrived at Dulles Airport on Wednesday to discover our plane had been pulled into security to investigate a strange beeping sound! Five hours later, we boarded the plane and taxied to the front of the runway—when the FAA grounded us, since the crew had been on duty too long. Thankfully, a young family we had been chatting with through the ordeal invited us to their home, where Juniper and I slept in the playroom after a late dinner and were up again at 5 a.m. the next morning.

I came home Thursday, and Levi was so excited to see us. Debra and Annabel had just left for a weekend college visit, and Levi had been home with Debra’s parents on call, feeling bored. That afternoon, he asked Juniper to watch the front flip he had been working on on our trampoline. As he dove headfirst into his flip, he rotated his hands and fell hard on them. I was making dinner just 20 feet away and heard the blood-curdling scream, thinking at first that he was playing around with his sister. By the second scream, I knew he was injured. I opened the sliding door to see Levi looking terrified, his forearms looking like they had developed an extra elbow. “Get in the car right now,” I barked, my brain switching to emergency triage mode.

I drove fast, my heart aching, my mind calculating what I would do if the police tried to pull me over. We got to Piedmont Hospital and, thankfully, were called back quickly. Levi was given morphine and finally relaxed. X-rays showed a clean break of the radius and ulna on both forearms. The right arm was worse, and a dark red spot under the arm showed where the bone almost came through. 

We were then sent to drive one hour through an appropriately dramatic lightning storm to Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital. A team of doctors worked, with little success, to get an IV into Levi’s foot. That was perhaps the most painful part to watch. Then I was graciously kicked out of the room while another team tried, again with little success, to reset the bones. After an hour, I was called back, and the doctor was visibly upset with himself for not being able to reset the bones properly. Nevertheless, they put him in a cast with instructions to follow up with the orthopedic surgeon after the swelling had gone down. The latest news is that the surgeon wants to operate on both arms, temporarily inserting a long rod to scaffold the healing process. This will put him in two long casts for three weeks, followed by another few weeks in a short cast or splint. If all goes well, he will be swimming in time for our family vacation in June!

For the last week, a new normal has emerged in our family. I’ve been home as Levi’s constant companion, helping him eat, bathe, and use the bathroom. Respecting the privacy of a 13-year-old boy while changing his underwear has been an interesting puzzle to solve. My work has given me space to figure out how much I can do, even from home. Levi’s little private school gave him the week off and even helped organize a meal train for us. I was supposed to be in Kathmandu in 12 days, but I’ve had to cancel that. After an intense year of globe-trotting and ministry growth, my world just got a lot smaller. For the next six weeks, Levi’s ability to both heal and finish school will be my main focus.

In the midst of bubble baths and playing phone tag with the surgeon, I remember that yesterday was Good Friday, a day that Christians worldwide celebrate the death of Jesus to reconcile humanity to God. The Father watched as the body of His Son was beaten and crushed under the weight of human cruelty. In the old days, when something terrible happened, you would cry out and tear your robes. When Jesus died, the earth shook, the sky turned black, and the massive curtain separating the temple’s “Most Holy Place” from the rest of the world was torn in two. I suppose the darkness, quaking, and tearing show us a picture of God’s emotion and empathy—having to watch the destruction of the person He loved most.

The day Levi was born, I felt an overwhelming sense of pride. To me, he was perfect. I imagined the bond we might share for many years to come. The next 13 years would invest countless memories into the substance of that bond: the toddler years, the big asthma attack when I was in Ethiopia, the first day of kindergarten, endless fights and reconnections with his little sister, that epic camping trip to the Tetons, and the road trip around Lake Superior... all of it reinforces the growing friendship between me and my son.

If you’ve had those experiences with a child and then had to see their body broken, their brain flooded with pain you can’t fix, or their eyes filled with panic you can’t comfort, you know the feeling in your chest that your heart might physically tear in half. Your stomach becomes a knot of iron, your mind races in a thousand directions while a single thought captures your attention: You’ll do absolutely anything to help this child, and you are willing to destroy anyone who stands in your way. It is a wrathful sort of compassion.

So I can only imagine the Father’s emotions. My son isn’t perfect. He is flawed like all of us. But when I look at him, he seems perfect—just like the day I first met him and felt that profound pride. But Jesus literally was and is perfect. How much can a limitless God love a truly perfect Son? I wonder how, then, this God could stand by while His perfect boy was crushed beneath the weight of other people’s sin—marred beyond recognition—to restore our godlike image. If I were God, I would have scorched the earth, sent in the tanks, dropped the bombs, scooped my son into my arms, and held him close. But Jesus chose this path of brokenness. He chose it not once, but over and over again: before the Incarnation, in the wilderness, on the road with the disciples, at the Last Supper, and in the Garden of Gethsemane. The Son resolutely chose this path. So the Father also chose the path of standing by helplessly. Why? Because both Father, Son, and Holy Spirit wanted the prodigal race of humanity to be restored to their place of dignity, humanity, and connectedness to God. The whole Godhead endured pain that day. And while the Father’s full battalion of warriors awaited Jesus’ command, He kept going, kept enduring, and finally cried out, “Father, forgive them.”

It wasn’t like sin was so impressive that it could triumph over God. Rather, His love was so impressive that He willingly endured the trauma of sin and then overcame it through resurrection. My friend Paul shared his reflection about it with me yesterday. As he reflected on Christ’s suffering, an impression emerged in his mind: “Paul, your sin did not do this TO me; rather, My love did this FOR you.” Sometimes I imagine my sin somehow got the better of Jesus—victimized Him against His will. But rather than being impressed by the power of my sin, I’m feeling more amazed at the endurance of His love.

Here is another layer from John 15. Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, I have loved you.” That little word “as” is a common word for Jesus. It starts a simile and refers to an exact comparison, a mirrored reality. “As” can mean “same in measure, quantity, quality, and substance.” Jesus doesn’t say He loves you like the Father loves you. That would leave some ambiguity about the strength of the love being offered. Rather, Jesus loves you as the Father loves Him. If you don’t think you deserve to be loved by God, know that you are lovable simply because Jesus loves you, and you are worthy because He made you. This love isn’t exhausted, distracted, reserved, or conditional. It is the kind of love a perfect Father would feel for a perfect Son. That is His love for you.

One final amazing thing: Jesus commands His disciples to love one another in exactly the same manner, measure, and quality with which He loved them. That means, exactly as the Father loves Jesus, we are to love other humans. In fact, this is the essence of His “command”: to love others as the Father loved Him and He loved me. That means nurturing an internal greenhouse of positive regard toward others and an eager willingness to work for their good. In some ways, it is easier to remember that one command than to memorize lists of rules. But in another way, that one simple command reveals my heart and shows me how little I understand the love of the Father. I wonder what it would be like to see my neighbor when I’m out for a walk and, instead of feeling scared that they are judging me, feel an upsurge of focused compassion—gladness to be with them and passion for their well-being. I wonder how it would feel if my anger against my enemies was replaced by a hatred for everything that stands in the way of their blessing and belovedness. How would it be if the emotions I’ve felt toward my son were the same emotions I felt toward those who annoy, intimidate, or overwhelm me?

I look inside my heart, and that reality still feels like an alien planet. But much of why it still feels so foreign is because judgment still festers in my heart, choking out the little love seedlings Jesus keeps planting. It isn’t Jesus’ fault. His love is whole. His command is, “Now, remain in my love.” But daily, I go looking for peace, absolution, and justice outside His heart. What if His love overwhelmed me daily? How would that change my capacity to both receive and give that Father-to-Son love that is so rich and so compelling?