It is fortunate that New Year’s Day rarely falls on a Sunday. Many who stayed up last night to greet the New Year are in no condition to worship today. [Though I understand that a few could be heard this morning moaning, “Oh God . . . Oh God . . . Oh God . . . “] And then, of course there is football, the real religion of many in our land. New Year’s Day is always a day of worship for the true football devotee. But here you and I are in the house of God. This, of course, is where we ought to begin a New Year.
I want to begin with a football story, but you don’t have to be a football fan to appreciate it. It’s about a young man named Kyle. Kyle Maynard was born with some of the birth defects that every parent fears--stunted arms and legs and misshapen hands and feet. Most people would consider him to be handicapped. But most people don’t know Kyle Maynard. This young man, who chooses not to use prosthetic limbs, constantly challenges himself to break physical barriers. He played middle school football alongside much bigger kids. In high school, Kyle began weight training and joined the wrestling team. He and his coach developed moves that made the most of Kyle’s physical assets. Kyle advanced so much that he earned the title, Strongest Teen, for his weight-lifting feats.
In fact, Kyle Maynard has such a positive attitude that a juvenile court judge once sentenced a troublesome kid to spend the day with Kyle. The judge wanted the teen to understand that our lives are shaped much more by our attitude than by our circumstances. After spending a day with the troubled teen, Kyle commented, “People think I have a bad life. Look at my life compared to this kid’s. I have a beautiful family who loves me. Everybody has struggles. My struggles are just more apparent.” (1)
Isn’t that amazing? You and I see people every day with perfectly good bodies, healthy in every way, who are mired in unhappiness. And then we run into a Kyle Maynard with his stunted arms and misshapen hands and feet, and he is so positive. How does that happen? Obviously it helps to have people who love you and believe in you.
I read something recently about actor Kirk Douglas’ mother. Douglas, for years one of Hollywood’s most prominent stars, but now known chiefly as Michel Douglas’ father, remembers his mother as a woman who overflowed with encouragement for her children. When he was in his mother’s presence, Kirk never doubted that he was special and beloved. He recalls a visit he made to his mother’s house not long after his first big movie came out. Kirk’s mother had invited all her friends over to meet him. When she introduced Kirk, she announced, “This is my son. The earth trembles when they mention his name.” (2)
Now that’s a proud mother. Does it make a difference when people love you and believe in you and encourage you? Of course, it does. I feel for children brought up by negative parents--critical, demanding, quick to admonish, slow to praise. I see people every day who are scarred by parents who could give them everything except what they needed most--unconditional love and acceptance.
A few years ago, Rabbi Marc Gafni gave a talk at a children’s camp in New York. At one point in the afternoon, Rabbi Gafni asked the children, “When was the last time someone told you that you were beautiful?” The children’s response devastated him. Few of them could recall true, encouraging words from their parents. So many of them heard only words of condemnation and shame. One young girl said, “My mother told me on Saturday that I was the ugliest little girl she knew.” Another boy related a heartbreaking conversation with his mother. He said, “My mother was in the Holocaust. And she says that if she had known that I would be her son, she wouldn’t have worked so hard to survive.” (3) A parent like that needs to stop and consider the impact of their words. It is hard to imagine a more hurtful thing to say to a child.
Sometimes, because we think of Jesus as the Son of God, we may not give Mary and Joseph enough credit as his earthly parents. They were not wealthy people, as today’s story from the Gospels makes clear. But they gave him what he needed. They helped him know he was loved. And they taught him about God. The 22nd verse of the second chapter of Luke reads like this: “When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord . . .”
This was the custom in New Testament times. Couples brought their first born and presented them at the temple [just as parents in our church bring their children and present them to God. Fortunately we do not restrict this important occasion to our first born. This is an important time for parents with every child.]
Mary and Joseph presented Jesus as an infant to God and they lived godly lives when they returned home. Note how Luke sums up Jesus’ childhood years, “When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.”
I wish every child could be surrounded by the kind of love and understanding Jesus received from his parents. Let me tell you another story from Rabbi Marc Gafni. Gafni recalls one of the first bar mitzvahs he ever performed. It was for a boy named Louis. Louis was awkward and sad. His insensitive parents did little to encourage his self-esteem. They implied that he was too dumb to learn the traditional Hebrew passages a boy recites for his bar mitzvah.
Rabbi Gafni was determined to bring out the best in Louis. He spent extra time teaching him the songs and prayers. He discovered that Louis was smart, and had a fantastic singing voice. On the day of his bar mitzvah, Louis performed beautifully. At the end of the ceremony, Rabbi Gafni stood and spoke directly to Louis. He said, “Louis, this morning you met your real self. This is who you are. You are good, graceful, talented, and smart. Whatever people told you yesterday, and Louis, whatever happens tomorrow, promise me one thing. Remember . . . this is you. Remember, and don’t ever lose it.”
A few years later, Louis wrote to Rabbi Gafni. The boy whose parents predicted that he was too dumb to perform a traditional bar mitzvah was studying for his medical degree at an Ivy League university. He was also engaged to be married. Louis ended his letter by saying, “. . . I kept my promise---I always remembered my bar mitzvah morning when you said that this is who I am. For this, I thank you.” (4)
I wish everybody could have an affirming adult like that in their lives. Some of you know about that kind of love. That was the kind of love you experienced from your parents. And you know how precious it is.
But some of you didn’t receive that kind of positive love. Your parents were good people. But somehow they were not able to affirm you the way every child deserves to be affirmed. You never got the message that you are beautiful and smart and worthy. And there is something missing in your life. A confidence, a sense of self-worth, what is often termed by psychologists, healthy self-esteem. And so you are continually sabotaging yourself. And you find yourself withholding love from your children and your spouse and other people important in your life. You were never really presented to God--not as a person of worth, of value, a person who deserves to enjoy abundant life. Is it too late? Are you doomed to always feeling a terrible sense of inadequacy? Are you doomed to a lifetime of being on the outside looking in at the lucky people who did receive this precious gift?
The answer is no. There is hope--if you realize that you and I have been presented to God--by Christ. This is the meaning of the atonement. Christ has presented us to the Father. He has placed his seal of approval on each of us. He has presented us unblemished and complete before the Father and said, “These beautiful people are my beloved. They are those for whom I laid down my life.” And the Father looks upon us not as the flawed people we see ourselves, but as a new creation in Christ.
One couple in modern times has reaped more scorn and ridicule than any other in the Christian community--former televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. Their son, Jay Bakker, now leads a ministry for teens in Atlanta, Georgia. He says that he never heard messages of God’s love and grace in his childhood church. He grew up believing that God was just waiting to catch him in his sins and to condemn him. He remembers his father’s first church. On the church wall was a painting of a giant eye. This eye represented the all-seeing, all-knowing nature of God. To Jay, the eye symbolized God’s constant judgment on him. He was scared to death of not living up to God’s standards, of not being holy enough to earn God’s love.
After Jay’s father, Jim, faced scandal and disgrace in his own ministry, Jay became even more convinced of God’s judgment on sinners. Christian friends and colleagues turned their back on the Bakker family. They became the butt of jokes in Christian circles. Once again, Jay felt like a failure in God’s eyes. But Jay saw a transformation take place in his father’s life after Jim was sentenced to prison. In prison, Jim Bakker experienced God’s overwhelming love and presence and peace. He realized what God’s grace is all about. He was able to let go of his past, and to forgive those who turned their backs on him. Through his father’s changed life, and through the love and acceptance of a few kind Christians, Jay writes, “I discovered the shocking secret: God loves me just the way I am.” (5) God does love us just as we are.
“When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord . . .” Christ, in turn, has presented you and me to the Lord. Give thanks and go from this place as one accepted and loved by God.
1. “The Contender” by Derek Burnett, Reader’s Digest, January 2005, pp. 119-125.
2. Kirk Douglas, My Stroke of Luck (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), p. 124.
3. Marc Gafni, The Mystery of Love (New York: Atria Books, 2003), pp. 120-121.
4. Ibid., pp. 123-124.
5. Jay Bakker in Stories of Emergence, edited by Mike Yaconelli (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2003), p. 182.