Before
he laid the foundations of the world God chose you. Before you existed he
conceived of you and loved you. He molded you out of the dust of the earth,
knit you together in your mother’s womb, and breathed into you the breath of
life.
He
remembers the frailty of our nature, our vulnerability to being blown here and
there by the winds of temptation, and yet he gives us grace to rise above our
earthly nature and live as his children. In all our failings, when we slide
back into the mire, he calls us to return to him and press forward towards our
higher calling.
The Psalmist celebrates God’s amazing faithfulness in today’s
psalm,
He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.For he himself knows whereof we are made he remembers that we are but dust.
Although He has
shown great love to us, all of us have sinned and proven unfaithful to our God
and creator. However, rather than dealing with us according to the just
consequences of our rebellion, God has remembered the promises he has made to
us and has shown us pity rather than wrath. He loves us as his very own
children.
God’s
love and his faithfulness to his creation is beautifully illustrated in a story
I’m sure most us know well, the story of Pinocchio. In our culture the story is
probably best known through the Disney animated feature. If you don’t know the
story or if the details are hazy, let me remind you of the basic plot.
Geppetto
is an old toymaker who loves children, but he has never had any of his own. He
lovingly crafts a wooden marionette made in the image of a little boy. Geppetto
wishes more than anything else that this wooden toy might become a real boy and
a son to him. The Blue Fairy hears his wish and graciously decides to grant it
by bringing the wooden puppet to life.
Although he has been magically brought to life, Pinocchio is
not yet the true boy his creator wishes him to be; he is still wood. In order
to become a real flesh and blood boy, the Blue fairy tells him that he must
prove himself “brave, truthful, and unselfish.”
You
might say that Pinocchio is like us and Geppetto is like our heavenly father.
Just as Geppetto made Pinocchio out of wood, God made us out of dust, and just
as Geppetto wishes Pinocchio to become a real boy, God wishes us to be more and
more conformed to the Image of his true and only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
If
you know the story, you know what happens next. Despite the protestations of
his guide Jiminy Cricket who is the voice of his conscience, Pinocchio is no
sooner sent into the world and charged to be faithful to the Blue Fairy’s
instructions, than he is led astray by a deceitful Fox and into the clutches of
a wicked puppet master named Stromboli.
Doesn’t
this seem familiar? Have we too not rebelled against our Father and against the
Holy Spirit? Haven’t we fallen into captivity to sin which pulls our strings,
and takes control of our lives?
When
we watch the film, we find ourselves (like Jiminy Cricket) continually
exasperated, frustrated, and disappointed with the wooden boy and his continual
rebellion, but if we are honest with ourselves are we not all more like
Pinocchio than we care to admit? Are we not too easily lured into taking the
easy way? Haven’t we all made an ass of ourselves on Pleasure Island
God’s
love and faithfulness was such that he did not abandon us when we ran away from
Him, rather he came looking for us in Christ. He descended into the very depths
of our sinful and fallen nature. He
went down to death in our place.
Geppetto doesn’t give up on Pinocchio either. He goes out
looking for him, and in the process is swallowed by a gigantic whale named
Monstro. The obvious Biblical parallel here is of course with the story of the
Prophet Jonah who was also swallowed by a whale. Jesus speaks of the story of
Jonah and the Whale as a sign of his own death and resurrection. He says,
“For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly
of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the
heart of the earth.”
When
Pinocchio reads the note from the Blue Fairy describing what Geppetto has done
out of love for him, he races off to rescue him with no thought of himself. It
is Geppetto’s love that finally inspires bravery, unselfishness, and
truthfulness in Pinocchio. He follows him even into the belly of the great
beast and ultimately gives his life to rescue his father.
If
we truly understand the love of God in Christ, we will take up our cross and
follow him even into the belly of the whale!
Because God has declared us to be his own children, we must put
to death our sinful nature and offer our lives as a living sacrifice to him. In
doing so we become like Christ in his own sacrifice. This is what it means to
grow into the image of Christ and to receive the life that comes from
above.
Jesus says, “he who does not take his cross and follow after me
is not worthy of me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has
lost his life for my sake will find it.”
Pinocchio lays down his life out of love, but in doing so he
finds greater life. In his act of bravery and sacrifice, Pinocchio at last
becomes the real boy that Geppetto always wished that he would someday become.
God created us from the dust of the earth, but he has heavenly aspirations for us. He made us in the image of his beloved son and it is his desire that we grow more and more like him in every way. Apart from his love, our lives are like the grass of the field, they pass away like a shadow, and to dust we return. But as the Psalmist says,
God created us from the dust of the earth, but he has heavenly aspirations for us. He made us in the image of his beloved son and it is his desire that we grow more and more like him in every way. Apart from his love, our lives are like the grass of the field, they pass away like a shadow, and to dust we return. But as the Psalmist says,
“the merciful goodness of the LORD endures forever on those who
fear him, and his righteousness on children's children, on those who keep his
covenant and remember his commandments and do them.”
To those of us who put to death the works of the flesh through
his spirit working in us, he will give us a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit
of despair.
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