Tuesday, April 04, 2006
(Below is my message at a communion service for Vintage Faith Church 3/29/06)
Service for Vintage Faith Church 3/29/06
Last Thursday, Sloan, my youngest daughter, turned sixteen. She’s an adult. She will have to get a job. She might even have to pay taxes. She will have to save lives this summer at Point Mallard’s wave pool, and it all makes a father sad.
His little girl-last little girl-is growing up. And when your child turns sixteen it’s the last time you’ll drive and the last time they’ll need your signature, until they get married and want you to help with their bills. And I hated to obey this sad moment and take her to get her driver’s license. But I’d promised I would. But I never realized how hard it would be.
When we got up last Thursday, some one had taken my little girl and left me one that was bubbly and appreciative—all in the same moment. It was actually scary. The thought of being an official driver made her giddy.
"Let's go, Dad," she said with a pop tart in her hand. "Let's move it!"
I said, "Give an old man a moment. I’ve got to have my pot of coffee."
I don't face the world without my Starbucks coffee. Ever. Plus, it was only 8:00 AM, and I had a half a pot left to drink.
"Dad, we've got to go," she said. "You promised."
And I had promised, so I did, and we got there about 8:30 AM. The place was loaded with people. It looked like a crowded phone booth—arms and legs of people everywhere. And we learned that they take forty names and that's it for the day, the guard behind the security check point told us so.
"You have to be kidding," I said.
Sloan said, "Dad, I told you."
Don't you hate to be wrong? So I asked, "Can you take the test somewhere else?"
"Yeah, you can take it in Cullman, Athens, or Moulton. And I'd probably go to Moulton," the security guard said.
So off to Moulton we went with Sloan whining and crying. "I'm not going to get my license today, am I?"
"Oh, yeah, we'll get them," I promised.
At Moulton's courthouse we beeped through the little security check twice and there wasn't a guard. We yelled, "Hey, we're beeping out here." No one came, so we just went to the basement and found the driver license examiner who told us he was full also.
Now we've moved from tears to all out drama. "This is the worse birthday of my life," she said.
And this is when it all flashed before me. Someday when Sloan takes her own kids to get their license, she’ll tell them, "When I was sixteen, I didn’t even get to take my driver’s license. My father, your papa," she’ll say, “had to drink his pot of coffee before we could go get mine, and by the time we got there the list was full.�
They'll ask, "And you didn't get your driver’s license on your birthday? You had to wait? What do you mean full, like they only had one simulator?"
"Honey, this was back in the day when you really had to drive the car. You kids got it made these days. We had to drive around the block with an examiner sitting beside us with a clip board while we did a three-point turn."
"You did?" they'll say. "Your father must have been mean. Did he do it on purpose?"
Well, what father wants to be remembered like that? So when we got home, I got on the internet and found every driver’s examination place in 100 mile radius.
Athens-full
Cullman-full
Hartselle-full
Huntsville-full
Birmingham-full
Then we hit pay dirt in the small town of Double Springs. I called and the lady at the Double Springs Community Center said, "Yeah, she's here today."
"Is she full?"
"No, I don't think so she's out doing two road tests right now."
"Great, we'll be right there."
Hope eternal. Redemption in Double Springs. And it was a long haul to Double Springs. And we found the community Center and the examiner’s office was a little hole in the wall in the back of the center.
We walked in and she said, “Do you have every item listed on the sign in the window?� She was a no nonsense kind of examiner—in her uniform with the stripe down the leg. Real fancy.
Then she barked, “You got to have a parent.�
Now I could’ve taken that in a couple of ways:
1. As a compliment
2. As an accusation, like you know, “You must be the poor, pitiful accuse for a father.�
I took it the first way, and said, “I’m her parent.�
After she looked at Sloan’s permit and SS card, she said, “Decatur! What are y’all doing here? Y’all come all the way from Decatur?�
I said,� Yeah, they were full. Then we went to Moulton and they were full. I promised her that I’d take her to get her license on her birthday.�
I thought this would bring some admiration. A father going the extra mile to make a birthday wish come true.
But she said, “Well, I hope she can drive.�
Sloan shot back, “I can.�
So off they go into the heart of Double Springs while I leaned against the wall outside the community center. When I asked if I could go, she said, “Nope, you can’t go.�
And I can’t describe to you the feeling I had watching her drive away with some one besides me in the car, and it seemed like forever before they popped over the rise.
And there they were like a Nazi officer and an orphaned child—the woman with her clip board and stern face, and Sloan with her birthday face and the steering wheel.
They parked in front of me and the driver’s test Nazi got out and I said in a jovial tone, “How’d she do?�
“Well, she did pretty good. She messed up on one thing.�
Then she started drawing me a diagram of a red light with a turning lane that veered off to the right. “Instead of taking the turning lane, she went to the red-light and made a sharp turn. So didn’t pass today. You can only take it once a day. Maybe tomorrow.� Then she pranced off, leaving us standing there in shock.
I wanted to yell, “You could have a little bit of compassion. You Nazi! You stinking road test flunky!�
We get in the car and drive off. Sloan is not crying. I’m speechless and we ride this way for about five miles. Then I got mad. I told Sloan that the woman would have flunked her, no matter what. “She didn’t want you to pass that test,� I said.
And we raged all the way home. I told her it was a bad idea to go to Double Springs and apologized, and she said, “Dad, it’s not your fault. I was the one who flunked the test.�
Of course I was off the hook. No longer did I have to worry about being slandered in front of her future kids and my future grandkids. I’d fulfilled my promise. Sloan had no one to blame but herself.
Tonight we sit here and have no one to blame about our guilt before God but ourselves. We have made choices. Some bad. Some good. But God fulfilled his promise to us. He so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, and if anyone believes on him they will not surely die.
Jesus has driven everyone of us to Double Springs, to the Cross. Christ went the extra mile. And the beauty of being a Christian is that we will never have to experience or fall into the hands of the examiner Nazi.
Because Christ took the test for us. He passed a new law. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life� (John 3:16).
The beauty of being a Christian is that Christ changed everything. No longer does passing the test to get into heaven depend on our human effort. It depends on our belief in Christ’s work on the cross.
And tonight as we partake of communion, you don’t have to take a holiness test before you can partake. Everyone in this room would fail. Because the moment you make communion about yourself, then it’s the moment you fall into the hands of the Nazi devil who is going to flunk you no matter what.
So tonight is not a test of our holiness, but of our faith, of our response to the one who took the test for us. It’s about the one who abolished the law and made a new one.
So tonight is a response to this great love of God. If we all asked for a license to be in heaven tonight, Christ wouldn’t say something similar to the driver examination woman, “I hope you can be holy.�
The maker of heaven and earth would say, “I’ll give you your license based on my holiness skills, not yours. Believe on me and you will always pass the holiness test.�
So tonight communion is about Him, not us. Yes, we come to this table with our sins ever before us, but we don’t make them a barrier. We ask for help with our sin. We ask for Christ’s strength.
Last Thursday, Sloan, my youngest daughter, turned sixteen. She’s an adult. She will have to get a job. She might even have to pay taxes. She will have to save lives this summer at Point Mallard’s wave pool, and it all makes a father sad.
His little girl-last little girl-is growing up. And when your child turns sixteen it’s the last time you’ll drive and the last time they’ll need your signature, until they get married and want you to help with their bills. And I hated to obey this sad moment and take her to get her driver’s license. But I’d promised I would. But I never realized how hard it would be.
When we got up last Thursday, some one had taken my little girl and left me one that was bubbly and appreciative—all in the same moment. It was actually scary. The thought of being an official driver made her giddy.
"Let's go, Dad," she said with a pop tart in her hand. "Let's move it!"
I said, "Give an old man a moment. I’ve got to have my pot of coffee."
I don't face the world without my Starbucks coffee. Ever. Plus, it was only 8:00 AM, and I had a half a pot left to drink.
"Dad, we've got to go," she said. "You promised."
And I had promised, so I did, and we got there about 8:30 AM. The place was loaded with people. It looked like a crowded phone booth—arms and legs of people everywhere. And we learned that they take forty names and that's it for the day, the guard behind the security check point told us so.
"You have to be kidding," I said.
Sloan said, "Dad, I told you."
Don't you hate to be wrong? So I asked, "Can you take the test somewhere else?"
"Yeah, you can take it in Cullman, Athens, or Moulton. And I'd probably go to Moulton," the security guard said.
So off to Moulton we went with Sloan whining and crying. "I'm not going to get my license today, am I?"
"Oh, yeah, we'll get them," I promised.
At Moulton's courthouse we beeped through the little security check twice and there wasn't a guard. We yelled, "Hey, we're beeping out here." No one came, so we just went to the basement and found the driver license examiner who told us he was full also.
Now we've moved from tears to all out drama. "This is the worse birthday of my life," she said.
And this is when it all flashed before me. Someday when Sloan takes her own kids to get their license, she’ll tell them, "When I was sixteen, I didn’t even get to take my driver’s license. My father, your papa," she’ll say, “had to drink his pot of coffee before we could go get mine, and by the time we got there the list was full.�
They'll ask, "And you didn't get your driver’s license on your birthday? You had to wait? What do you mean full, like they only had one simulator?"
"Honey, this was back in the day when you really had to drive the car. You kids got it made these days. We had to drive around the block with an examiner sitting beside us with a clip board while we did a three-point turn."
"You did?" they'll say. "Your father must have been mean. Did he do it on purpose?"
Well, what father wants to be remembered like that? So when we got home, I got on the internet and found every driver’s examination place in 100 mile radius.
Athens-full
Cullman-full
Hartselle-full
Huntsville-full
Birmingham-full
Then we hit pay dirt in the small town of Double Springs. I called and the lady at the Double Springs Community Center said, "Yeah, she's here today."
"Is she full?"
"No, I don't think so she's out doing two road tests right now."
"Great, we'll be right there."
Hope eternal. Redemption in Double Springs. And it was a long haul to Double Springs. And we found the community Center and the examiner’s office was a little hole in the wall in the back of the center.
We walked in and she said, “Do you have every item listed on the sign in the window?� She was a no nonsense kind of examiner—in her uniform with the stripe down the leg. Real fancy.
Then she barked, “You got to have a parent.�
Now I could’ve taken that in a couple of ways:
1. As a compliment
2. As an accusation, like you know, “You must be the poor, pitiful accuse for a father.�
I took it the first way, and said, “I’m her parent.�
After she looked at Sloan’s permit and SS card, she said, “Decatur! What are y’all doing here? Y’all come all the way from Decatur?�
I said,� Yeah, they were full. Then we went to Moulton and they were full. I promised her that I’d take her to get her license on her birthday.�
I thought this would bring some admiration. A father going the extra mile to make a birthday wish come true.
But she said, “Well, I hope she can drive.�
Sloan shot back, “I can.�
So off they go into the heart of Double Springs while I leaned against the wall outside the community center. When I asked if I could go, she said, “Nope, you can’t go.�
And I can’t describe to you the feeling I had watching her drive away with some one besides me in the car, and it seemed like forever before they popped over the rise.
And there they were like a Nazi officer and an orphaned child—the woman with her clip board and stern face, and Sloan with her birthday face and the steering wheel.
They parked in front of me and the driver’s test Nazi got out and I said in a jovial tone, “How’d she do?�
“Well, she did pretty good. She messed up on one thing.�
Then she started drawing me a diagram of a red light with a turning lane that veered off to the right. “Instead of taking the turning lane, she went to the red-light and made a sharp turn. So didn’t pass today. You can only take it once a day. Maybe tomorrow.� Then she pranced off, leaving us standing there in shock.
I wanted to yell, “You could have a little bit of compassion. You Nazi! You stinking road test flunky!�
We get in the car and drive off. Sloan is not crying. I’m speechless and we ride this way for about five miles. Then I got mad. I told Sloan that the woman would have flunked her, no matter what. “She didn’t want you to pass that test,� I said.
And we raged all the way home. I told her it was a bad idea to go to Double Springs and apologized, and she said, “Dad, it’s not your fault. I was the one who flunked the test.�
Of course I was off the hook. No longer did I have to worry about being slandered in front of her future kids and my future grandkids. I’d fulfilled my promise. Sloan had no one to blame but herself.
Tonight we sit here and have no one to blame about our guilt before God but ourselves. We have made choices. Some bad. Some good. But God fulfilled his promise to us. He so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, and if anyone believes on him they will not surely die.
Jesus has driven everyone of us to Double Springs, to the Cross. Christ went the extra mile. And the beauty of being a Christian is that we will never have to experience or fall into the hands of the examiner Nazi.
Because Christ took the test for us. He passed a new law. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life� (John 3:16).
The beauty of being a Christian is that Christ changed everything. No longer does passing the test to get into heaven depend on our human effort. It depends on our belief in Christ’s work on the cross.
And tonight as we partake of communion, you don’t have to take a holiness test before you can partake. Everyone in this room would fail. Because the moment you make communion about yourself, then it’s the moment you fall into the hands of the Nazi devil who is going to flunk you no matter what.
So tonight is not a test of our holiness, but of our faith, of our response to the one who took the test for us. It’s about the one who abolished the law and made a new one.
So tonight is a response to this great love of God. If we all asked for a license to be in heaven tonight, Christ wouldn’t say something similar to the driver examination woman, “I hope you can be holy.�
The maker of heaven and earth would say, “I’ll give you your license based on my holiness skills, not yours. Believe on me and you will always pass the holiness test.�
So tonight communion is about Him, not us. Yes, we come to this table with our sins ever before us, but we don’t make them a barrier. We ask for help with our sin. We ask for Christ’s strength.
