The Eternally Broad Love of God
In his book, The Garden, the Curtain, and the Cross, Carl Laferton attempts to help children begin to grasp one of the most difficult concepts about Christianity: human sinfulness and the need for divine redemption. With the help of illustrator Catalina Evheverri’s vibrant and colorful depictions, young readers are invited to experience the Garden of Eden, the Jerusalem Temple, the Crucifixion of Christ, and his Resurrection in age-appropriate ways as the story of creation’s undeniable need for God’s grace unfolds.
There is no question that the epicenter of Good Friday—regardless of what one believes about atonement—stands the “old rugged cross.” In The Garden, the Curtain, and the Cross, Laferton is clear about his theology of atonement: Creation is bad; God shut us out; God sent Jesus to die in order to give us a chance at being reunited with God. I wonder how we make peace with a God who willingly and knowingly shuts us out, and pushes us away. How do we reconcile a God whom we have been taught is unconditionally loving but also sent their son for the sheer purpose of dying an abhorrent death? How does that theological narrative offer hope in the midst of the depraved hopelessness that threatens to overtake the soul of our country and our world in these days?
I’m not sure that it does. These questions are why I found this book both thought-provoking as well as frustrating. As a pastor to children, I will name my own struggle in talking with children about atonement in ways they can begin to comprehend, take with them, and grow into throughout their lives. There are parts of this book that offer language in which to have these conversations. But there are others that I believe—if not handled with care—could cause great harm to a child’s theology from the repeated phrase throughout the book: “It is wonderful to live with him, but because of your sin, you can’t come in.”
We do not have to look far in our current societal and political context to find ways in which our children (in one form or another) are being told, “You can’t come in.” The rights to health care for trans children, the rights to education for immigrant children, and the rights to food for impoverished children are only a few among an ever-growing list that are being compromised. If children are not directly experiencing these depravities, they are watching as their classmates do and are left with two choices: to be righteously angry at the plight of their friends or to believe that the “powers that be” must know what they are doing and should therefore go unquestioned in their decisions.
Children are being shown that adults in power who have the ability and responsibility to care for them and their families will not always do what is necessary (not to mention morally and ethically just) in order to protect them. The “You cannot come in” messaging is swirling around them from countless directions and in numerous contexts. How could hearing this very same message coming from a God who supposedly knowingly created them and immovably loves them possibly be beneficial to their spiritual well-being and development?
I hear you. “That’s why Jesus sent his son to die—so that we can ‘come in.’” I believe we do ourselves and our children a grave disservice if this is the entirety of both our comprehension and our teaching of the gospel. Laferton’s book would suggest Jesus Christ was sent by God into the world to “tear the curtain”—both the literal curtain surrounding the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple as well as the proverbial one of sin—but humanity’s violent execution of God’s son is not and should not be misconstrued as God’s comprehensive plan of action to save God’s people from themselves.
We are to understand that Jesus was sent by God to illuminate the essence of God for all of creation, to eliminate the barriers of sin and shame which prohibit the alignment of our spirits with God’s own, and to embody God’s will in such an unquestionable manner that humanity could not possibly miss the invitation to live likewise. We are to understand it is God’s most organic and deeply felt desire to be in an enduring relationship with us. When we failed to receive the message, God sent a messenger who could make it plain: In spite of sin, love prevails because of redeeming grace. It is in Christ’s ultimate sacrifice for us on the cross—as well as his selfless life of ministry and triumphant resurrection from the dead—that something heartbreaking and holy occurs. We are simultaneously shown in no uncertain terms the gravity of our sinful nature as well as the overwhelming power of God’s grace-infused love that far and away exceeds the power of worldly sin and death. We are shown that God will stop at nothing to make sure we know we are claimed by God, cherished by God, and called by God to tend to the divine work of justice with every opportunity that comes our way.
But we cannot do that work faithfully and fruitfully if we do not first recognize our need for a savior, the Savior. You and me? We can’t change the world of our own volition. No matter how hard we try, apart from God, our attempts are feeble and futile at best—tarnished by our own greed, pride, selfishness, bias, and everything else Jesus came to persuade us to relinquish in favor of living in alignment with the Kindom of God.
Lavish grace and everlasting love take the lead in the divine dance of life. In his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus Christ tears down the human-created barriers standing between us and God by showing us a better way to live for God and with each other while simultaneously reemphasizing God’s longing and insistence that we be nowhere else other than the steadfast arms of the Divine. While Laferton’s emphasis seems to be on a God whose primary focus is to punish creation by shutting the door in its face until it accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior via death on a cross, I wonder what a reframing of this theology could look like—for our children and for us. What if instead, we imagined a God whose focus is an open invitation into a divine relationship by way of the fullness of Christ—his humanity, his divinity, his ministry, his ultimate sacrifice on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into heaven? How does that change our perspective? How does that transform us?
If we choose to hold sacred who Christ is, how Christ lived, and why Christ commissioned us to live in alignment with his mission, then our senses begin to come awake to the need to ensure every single person knows that our God is the God of open doors, not closed ones. We are called to open door after door until every place threatened to become deprived of God’s grace and love is overflowing with those gifts in whatever tangible ways they are needed. We are called to close door after door that would communicate to our children and our neighbors that the gifts of God’s grace and love are only for a select, deserving few. We have been invited to believe that God is who God has shown us to be in the Christ, and we have been called to proclaim for all the world with our lives what God has led us to believe is true:
It is wonderful to live with God.
Yes, we humans are certainly flawed.
But the love of God is eternally broad.
Rev. Mary Kate Myers
Reverend Mary Kate Myers is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church serving in Clarksville, Tennessee where she is the Pastor of Children, Youth, and Young Adults at Hilldale UMC as well as the Campus Minister of the Austin Peay State University Wesley Foundation. Mary Kate is married to Bo who is also a United Methodist pastor, and together they have two children: Foster and Maggie. In her free time, Mary Kate enjoys spending time with her family, being near water of any kind, and writing.