The Gospel is the answer when you have no answers left. The desperate tears of my daughter reminded me of the good news we all need to hear. Simple forgiveness.
For too many years I have had my head buried in books on theology, doctrine, biblical languages. During high school, I had too many questions that no one would answer. During college, I discovered the tip of an iceberg of answers and more technical theological realms. In grad school, I basked in Hebrew verb forms, hermeneutics, and the finer points of arguments over unpronounceable terminology. It was all for the sake of the gospel. But despite the massive downloads of technical information, there is one moment that will always stand out.
Twenty of us were barely awake on a gray morning. It wasn’t wet enough to snow, but cold enough to lace the leaded windows with cracks of frost. I remember trying to balance my coffee and spiral notebook on a tiny one-arm desk while taking notes. The professor was interesting enough, but my eyes were heavy. And the heater was humming me softly to sleep.
Then all of a sudden it was silent in the room. I hadn’t heard what he had just said, but the quiet snapped my eyes open. Instead of a distinguished, proud teacher up front, I saw someone entirely different in the same man. He was sitting on the edge of his desk, shoulders hunched, looking at the ground. As we waited for him to continue his lecture, my classmates and I tried not to watch the tears well up as he searched for the next words to say.
“My friends,” he began, “the more I understand the Gospel… The more I realize how much I do not know.”
How much we all don’t know
Twenty of us, entrenched in rigorous academic work for the last several years of our young lives, immensely respected this teacher of the faith that had at least 40 additional years of study on us. We were unabashedly confident in what we knew about theology and the Bible and in explaining the Gospel of Jesus. But to hear him say that he, even more, today struggled with not knowing was a bit incomprehensible. After everything I have learned, I have never forgotten that.
Although the sentiment of this professor has been on my mind since that day, it took me a long time and many self-righteous mistakes to realize how much I also did not know. Through each awkward conversation in the park when a stranger asked about Jesus, and I overwhelmed the questions with academic doctrine. Through each tearful confession of a friend in the coffee shop where I was stunned into silence. Through each blatant “Why do you believe that?” question from my non-Christian friend at the gym, I have not been ready to answer.
After all those years of specific theological training, did I even understand the Gospel? After all the knowledge and understanding I had carefully tried to build, it seemed like a piece of understanding was still missing. The emotional words of my dear professor echoed in my heart, but I still didn’t get it.
Parent and child
It was during one ordinary Tuesday afternoon when I suddenly understood the depth of what I didn’t grasp before. It was not in a theology book. It was not after more intense Biblical study or fervent prayer. It was discovered in the tiny tears of my toddler daughter. Here is where I began to learn that the great wisdom of the Gospel is found in the most humiliating places.
That morning, the house became too quiet, signifying my children were getting themselves into trouble. When I opened the bathroom door, I discovered red swirls and smiling graffiti all over the pristine white walls. My toddler had drawn all over our master bathroom with my favorite lipstick. She had been proud of her beautiful artwork, but my angry words left her devastated on the tile floor, curled up and sobbing. I took a breath after yelling at her, just long enough to see the sadness and regret in her eyes. Her longing face made my own throat swell. She knew she was wrong. I knew she needed forgiveness.
As I took this little disobedient child up into my arms, I remembered all of the times when I felt like this, curled up on the bathroom floor, ashamed and scared. In her snotty sniveling plea for help, I knew what was needed: the Gospel for her. Jesus forgave the sins of the whole world. Jesus forgave the worst things I could possibly do. Jesus forgave the disobedience and destruction at the hands of my daughter. Jesus paid the punishment for everyone’s failures.
So, It was simple. I forgave my daughter.
It’s simple
The Gospel is the answer when you have no answers left. The desperate tears of my daughter reminded me of the good news we all need to hear. Simple forgiveness. But for those of us who strive to understand and explain the Gospel of Jesus, we often make it more complicated than it needs to be. This is what my professor was trying to tell us when he said, “The more I understand the Gospel, the more I realize how much I do not know”. The Gospel is not about knowing the right words to say at the right time. The Gospel is not learning an air-tight theological system. Rather, the Gospel is simply good news for our mistakes. Jesus died so that your sin can be forgiven.
The Apostle Paul was a well-learned man in his day. But he also struggled to understand the simple Gospel of Jesus. Paul was a scholar who had to be blinded and humiliated so that he could understand the truth of the good news (Acts 9). And when he finally preached the simple Gospel, it sounded like this:
“For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).
Paul clearly states the Gospel is simple. A crucified Jesus does not need you to fix your mistakes. A crucified Jesus does not wait for you to dry your tears. A crucified Jesus died for your sins when humanity was at its worst. And a crucified Jesus certainly doesn’t wait for your understanding to catch up with his forgiveness.
It’s simple. We are forgiven.
However, it is humiliating to learn that the Gospel defies all of our hard-earned knowledge. Because the more I understand the Gospel, the more I realize how much I cannot explain the depths of selfless love. In fact, I’m still learning all I need to know is Jesus Christ and his complete forgiveness.
It’s really that simple.
