This is a story that I attached to the small group leader guide on 8/19/07 when we were in the Inside Out series and talking about worship. I’m posting it here on the blog also because it’s a great illustration of God’s love for us. Enjoy
1John 3:1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
In the year 2000, I attended a Promise Keepers conference in Denver, Colorado. On Friday evening, at the downbeat of the opening worship time, I stepped out from the backstage production area to see how the men in the arena were engaging in worship.
Seated in the front row was a man in his early fifties. His teenaged son was seated next to him in a wheel chair. It was dreadfully obvious at first glance that this boy was severely handicapped. I learned later that he had suffered a spinal cord injury playing high school football. The boy was paralyzed from the neck down. He was blind and unable to speak.
When the music started, I witnessed the most remarkable living demonstration of the Father’s love that I have ever seen. As 16,000 men stood to sing “All Hail the Power of Jesus Name,” this father turned and faced his son. He slipped his hands beneath the boy’s arms, lifted him out of his wheelchair, and held him in a bear hug. There they stood, face-to-face, not more than six inches apart from one another. The father began singing to his son.
The boy couldn’t see his father’s face, but he could feel his touch and hear his voice. Slowly, a smile came to the boy’s face, like a sunrise breaking through a clouded horizon. The boy was able, with great exertion, to wrap his right arm around his father’s neck. And for the next ten minutes they stood in one another’s arms, a proud, loving father singing to his crippled son.
The father’s face was full of love and pride for his son, not because of anything the boy could do, but simply because of who the boy was -the father’s son- broken, helpless, but beautiful in his father’s eyes. As I watched in tearful amazement, I remembered these cherished words from Scripture:
The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with his love, He will rejoice over you with singing.
(Zephaniah 3:17)
What I saw that night was the Word in flesh, dwelling among us. I saw a father taking great delight in his son, quieting him with his love and rejoicing over him with singing. Grace embracing brokenness; joy triumphing over tragedy. In this father’s eyes, I saw the love and pride of my heavenly Father. In the son, I saw myself and millions of other broken, helpless people.
Like this man, our heavenly Father loves us. Not because of what we can do for Him, but because of who we are - His sons and daughters, in whom He takes great delight. And He rejoices over us with singing.
The Passover feast was (and is to this day) one of the most sacred and important feasts on the Jewish calendar. On this important day, Jewish families would gather together, slaughter a lamb, roast its meat over a fire, prepare bitter herbs and bread made without yeast, and share this meal in remembrance of the events from Exodus 12.
