I have 3 little ones who are no longer little.

This morning my son walked into school as a freshman in High School.  My little princess is now in middle school.  And my baby is in 3^RD GRADE!  What is happening?  I glance up at the calendar on the wall and marvel how quickly the pages seem to turn.  October already?  Wasn’t it Easter just last week? The hands of the clock appear to accelerate as my frantic mind begins to contemplate, “how can I make the most of the time we have left?”

How can I effectively communicate the intricacies of the gospel before they leave the nest and begin to question everything we have ever taught them?

 

Finding the Gospel in Pop Culture

Brown hair curled, white dress flowing, and smelling of fruiting perfume; my little Scarlett came downstairs looking beautiful.  This was Daddy-Daughter-Date-Night!  We had secured tickets to The Little Mermaid Broadway Musical playing at The Smith Center.  Honestly, my mind wasn’t yet in the right place.  The week had been long and the day I had just experienced seemed longer than that week.  I was tired.  I wasn’t feeling very Disney.  But she had been counting down the days to this moment for weeks.

“How do I look?”  Looking up at me with those blue eyes framed by a hundred freckles I suddenly remembered that tonight wasn’t about me.  “You look like a snowflake!”  She smiled, took my hand, and off we went to our little adventure.

This was a story I knew very well.  The songs have been in my head since childhood.  I could (and did) sing along to nearly every song, occasionally glancing down at my little mermaid as the glow of stage lighting bounced off of her smiling reflection.

Ariel longs.  Sabastian frets.  Eric struts.  Ursula schemes.  Children watch.  Triton forbids.  Ariel rebels.  Ursula waits.  The audience knows.

When the Sea Witch offered Ariel a chance to fulfil her dreams, disobey her father, become human, and win the heart of her beloved prince – I noticed Scarlett learning forward on the edge of her seat.  All that was required of Ariel was to relinquish her voice and sign a document pledging her eternal soul to Ursula if she wasn’t able to get Prince Eric to fall in love with her in 3 days.  Ariel Agrees!  At first it appears that making the deal with Ursula was the right choice.  She had legs, had met Eric, and was living in his castle.  Surely Ariel could save herself regardless of her disobedient behavior.

But alas – she is utterly unable to redeem her lost condition.  After 3 days of extreme effort and help from friends, Ariel is unable to make Eric fall in love.  Ursula then arrives back on the scene, ready to claim her prize and enslave the little mermaid for all eternity.  All seems lost until King Triton appears.  He attempts to save Ariel but is confronted with the sad but certain realization that Ariel had sold her soul in a binding contractual agreement – and there was NOTHING that King Triton could do about it!

But then we see a twist!  An offer that nobody was expecting.  A substitutionary sacrifice could be made.  If King Triton would be willing to take the place of his beloved daughter, leave his throne, and take Ariel’s punishment – then Ursula would be satisfied, the payment would be made, and Ariel would go free.  Would the king be willing to sacrifice himself in order to save his beloved daughter?

 

The Gospel – It’s Everywhere I Look

It’s called The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon or The Frequency Illusion.  This is the illusion in which a word, name, or thing that has recently come to someone’s attention suddenly seems to appear with improbable frequency.  It’s like when you buy a yellow car, you start becoming more aware of yellow cars.  The number of yellow cars hasn’t increased, but your awareness of yellow cars has.

Have you noticed that the Gospel is everywhere?  Stories of redemption and substitutionary sacrifice are everywhere (Titus 1:15).  Katniss is willing to sacrifice herself for Prim.  Samwise is willing to sacrifice himself for Frodo.  Even Darth Vader ends up sacrificing himself in the end to save his son Luke.  Sure, there are many examples of a false gospel for those who are looking – but there are just as many (if not more) examples of the Gospel of Jesus Christ playing out all around us.  If you play chess you might be willing to sacrifice a knight in order to take out a queen.  If you play baseball you might be willing to hit a sacrifice bunt in order to advance a base runner to another base.

It’s almost as if the human spirit is obsessed with the idea of Sacrificial Love.  Our greatest heroes are those who are willing to sacrifice themselves for others, on the battle field, in falling towers, in Colorado school hallways, or at Las Vegas music festivals.

 

Point It Out

As I sat there with Scarlett my own parents came to mind.  I have a very clear memory of my father sitting with us in our family room after we first watched The Little Mermaid.  He turned off the television, turned on the lights, and opened his Bible.

“What was your favorite song in the movie?”  Charity spoke up first, “Part of your World.”

“What did Ariel do wrong?”  “She disobeyed her daddy.”

“What happened when she disobeyed her daddy?”  “Everything seemed to be okay – but then bad things began to happen.”

“Who saved Ariel from becoming a seaweed?”  “Her daddy!  He was going to take her place.”

My father went on to explain, “we have all sinned and walked away from our Heavenly Father.  This sin is like making a deal with the Devil.  Our soul is his and we are headed toward eternal punishment.  But God loves us so much that He became a man and died upon the cross to pay for our sins.  This act of sacrifice as freed us from our sin penalty and we can now be saved.  Jesus resurrected from the grave and now offers freedom and forgiveness to anyone willing to receive it.  Matthew, have you received Jesus as your savior?”  “Yes, Dad.”  “Joshua, do you understand how Jesus sacrificed himself for you?”  “Yes Sir.”  “Charity, do you believe that Jesus died for your sins too?”  “I do, yes.”

God told the nation of Israel in The Shema that they were to love the Lord, keep His words, and teach them diligently to their children.

Deuteronomy 6:4-7 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

He tells us to speak of Him and His love to our children everywhere life may take us.  When you are sitting around the house, when you are walking through the mall, when you are putting them to bed, when you are waking them for school – everywhere and at all times we should be pointing out the love and grace of our Lord to the children we are raising in the faith.

 

I had a “life-cycle-moment” on the way home from the Smith Center that evening.

“Scarlett, what was your favorite song in the show?” “Under the Sea!”

“What did Ariel do wrong?”  “She disobeyed her daddy.”

“What happened when she disobeyed her daddy?”  “Everything seemed to be okay – but then bad things began to happen.”

“Who saved Ariel from her fate?”  “Her daddy!  He was going to take her place.”

“Snowflake, did you know that God – in a much more important way has sacrificed himself for you and your sins?  You see, the Bible tells us that…”

 

What are your thoughts?  Where am I going wrong?  Where do you agree?  What have I missed?  Please comment in the thread below and I will attempt to answer each.

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