John H Armstrong

The One Who Takes the Son Gets Everything: A Parable

 

Ever so often I am forwarded an anonymous story or parable that is worth keeping and sharing. Most are too romantic for my tastes. Some are just not very good stories. One never knows who found or wrote these stories because they just get passed along from person to person with no attribution. I got one such story last week from a good friend. Instead of simply passing it along I share it today as a blog post.

I have to say that this parable (or story) speaks to the very heart and soul of faith and the work of Christ on our behalf. I loved it and thus I now share it. The punctuation is not mine but in the original copy I received. If anyone can tell me the source I will be happy to acknowledge it. For now just enjoy this powerful story . . . . 

A wealthy man and his son loved to collect rare works of art. They had everything in their collection, from Picasso to Raphael. They would often sit together and admire the great works of art..

When the Vietnam conflict broke out, the son went to war. He was very courageous and died in battle while rescuing another soldier. The father was notified and grieved deeply for his only son.
  

About a month later, just before Christmas,
 

There was a knock at the door. A young man stood at the door with a large package in his hands..
  

He said, 'Sir, you don't know me, but I am the soldier for whom your son gave his life. He saved many lives that day, and he was carrying me to safety when a bullet struck him in the heart and he died instantly... He often talked about you, and your love for art.' The young man held out this package. 'I know this isn't much. I'm not really a great artist, but I think your son would have wanted you to have this.'

The father opened the package. It was a portrait of his son, painted by the young man. He stared in awe at the way the soldier had captured the personality of his son in the painting. The father was so drawn to the eyes that his own eyes welled up with tears. He thanked the young man and offered to pay him for the picture.. 'Oh, no sir, I could never repay what your son did for me. It's a gift.'

The father hung the portrait over his mantle. Every time visitors came to his home he took them to see the portrait of his son before he showed them any of the other great works he had collected.

The man died a few months later. There was to be a great auction of his paintings. Many influential people gathered, excited over seeing the great paintings and having an opportunity to purchase one for their collection.

On the platform sat the painting of the son. The auctioneer pounded his gavel. 'We will start the bidding with this picture of the son. Who will bid for this picture?'

There was silence...
 

Then a voice in the back of the room shouted, 'We want to see the famous paintings. Skip this one.'
  

But the auctioneer persisted. 'Will somebody bid for this painting? Who will start the bidding? $100, $200?'
  

Another voice angrily. 'We didn't come to see this painting. We came to see the Van Gogh's, the Rembrandts. Get on with the Real bids!'
 

But still the auctioneer continued. 'The son! The son! Who'll take the son?'

Finally, a voice came from the very back of the room. It was the longtime gardener of the man and his son. 'I'll give $10 for the painting...' Being a poor man, it was all he could afford.
 

'We have $10, who will bid $20?'
 

'Give it to him for $10. Let's see the masters.'
 

The crowd was becoming angry. They didn't want the picture of the son.
  

They wanted the more worthy investments for their collections.

The auctioneer pounded the gavel.. 'Going once, twice, SOLD for $10!'

A man sitting on the second row shouted, 'Now let's get on with the collection!'

The auctioneer laid down his gavel. 'I'm sorry, the auction is over.'
 

'What about the paintings?'

 

'I am sorry. When I was called to conduct this auction, I was told of a secret stipulation in the will... I was not allowed to reveal that stipulation until this time. Only the painting of the son would be auctioned. Whoever bought that painting would inherit the entire estate, including the paintings.

 

The man who took the son gets everything!'

God gave His son over 2,000 years ago to die on the Cross. Much like the auctioneer, His message today is: 'The Son, the Son, who'll take the Son?'

Because, you see, whoever takes the Son gets everything!

FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, WHO SO EVER BELIEVETH, SHALL HAVE ETERNAL LIFE...THAT'S LOVE

 

The Debt: A Sobering and Tense Thriller

Each of us has secrets that we keep to ourselves. We know this even though we often try to avoid it. Some of these secrets haunt us profoundly. Sometimes we are able to make a semblance of peace with them over time. This is why confession is so vital to true spiritual and emotional health. The ancient traditions of Orthodoxy and Catholicism have an established means for direct confession that involve a spiritual guide who hears and responds to our sins with a word of grace. Still, many of us act as if sharing our secrets will destroy us. The truth is the exact opposite.

This reality came home to me rather powerfully as I watched the new film The Debt. Based on an acclaimed 2007 Israeli film called Ha-Hov [The Debt], this new film—directed by Oscar-winning director John Madden, is a taunt and suspenseful story that will go deep into the mind and soul of the viewer who has a conscience.

In The Debt the viewer is also powerfully reminded of the horrors of Nazi cruelty. By the end there is a deep sense of justice that cries out for finality. How can these Nazi atrocities, particularly those committed by physicians, be brought to trial?

What makes this film difficult to watch is that the unfolding of the story repeatedly jumps back and forth between time periods over a span of thirty-plus years. This presents a real problem because different actors are playing the same person and at times this makes their roles a bit conflicted cinematically. The story, however, is tight and taunt. You can eventually get over this problem if you stay with the story itself.

Here is the story. In 1966, Mossad (the Israeli secret intelligence agency) sends secret agents Rachel (Jessica Chastain), David (Sam Worthington), and Stephan (Marton Csokas) to accomplish one goal: find the (fictitious) Nazi war criminal Dr. Dieter Vogel and bring him to trial. Vogel is the infamous "Surgeon of Birkenau," who sent thousands of Jews to their deaths at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp during the Holocaust. The problem is that Vogel now lives in East Berlin and getting him out will not be easy. When the team does capture him things go bad rather quickly. The gripping and tense drama then gets amped up big time by this point in the film.

More than thirty years later (1997) Rachel (Helen Mirren) and Stephan (Tom Wilkinson)—who married after their time in Berlin and now are divorced from one another—are in Tel Aviv for a celebration of the publication of their daughter's book about their experience back in 1965. But as they celebrate you have the sense that something is still powerfully amiss. David (Ciaran Hinds), the third member of their 1965 team, throws himself in front of a truck, committing suicide. It seems that the secret they have both protected for decades is soon to be revealed. In a state of shock they must face the truth of their real past and pay the debt they still owe, thus the movie title taken from the Hebrew.

I cannot compare The Debt to the original Hebrew film since I have not seen it. Some critics suggest that this remake was neither necessary nor an entirely fruitful experience. Frankly, I found The Debt riveting and provocative. The theme is one that we all must face at one time or another. What if your deepest, darkest secret(s) came back to haunt you after decades of lies? Lies can be woven into our lives in powerful ways. Few of us really thinks deeply enough about how to face the whole truth of our own story. How do we dig out the truth and move forward freely and openly? One thing is for sure—someday we must all face the truth. If we do not face the truth now then God will reveal it to us in the Final Day. The Debt is a powerful reminder of this sobering reality.

Radical Forgiveness at the Heart of the Gospel

At the heart of the gospel is radical forgiveness. God has forgiven us in Jesus Christ. Forgiveness removes the wall that separates us from God and one another. In the Roman Empire nothing could be further removed from religion and everyday life than forgiveness.

I recently watched several historical series on Rome and the Empire. This viewing was connected to my interest in all things Roman after personally seeing some of the more impressive ruins of the ancient Empire in March. I am struck by the absence of forgiveness in Roman practice and Roman religion. The teaching of Jesus and Paul challenged the very heart of the Empire regarding what was most basic to faith and life: forgiveness.

Modern Christian scholar Miroslav Volf has written: "Forgiveness places us on a boundary between enmity and friendship, between exclusion and embrace. It tears down the wall of hostility that wrongdoing erects, but it doesn't take us into the territory of friendship. Often, that's all we can muster the strength to do, and all that offenders will allow us” (Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace).

 

We cannot always establish a friendship with some people but we can forgive them. Some will not even allow this forgiveness to flow freely but we can still stand in the place of forgiveness by offering ourselves to them in the humble spirit of forgiveness that we’ve come to know in Jesus. In a culture stripped almost entirely of grace we can give forgiveness and receive it where it is given.

Writing about the power and place of humility Rich Mouw, the president of Fuller Theological Seminary, adds, "Humility is a spirit of self-examination. It's a hermeneutic of suspicion toward yourself and charity toward people you disagree with."

I love that. Humility examines self, not the other. If we disagree I remain suspicious of myself, not of you. If I disagree with you love itself requires me to be suspicious of me before I am remotely suspicious about you. This is what love is according to the apostle in 1 Corinthians 13:7, “[Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

So far as I can tell we are never urged to examine others! (This is why the oft used phrase that we are called to be “fruit inspectors” is hollow to me.) We are clearly told to examine ourselves. The church (corporate) must judge, and even reject, false teaching and false teachers. But this is not the same as me passing judgment on you, or me examining your actions, words or motives according to how I hear, understand or receive them. Indeed, the Scripture seems fairly clear about not passing judgment in most of the ways that we do it inside the church in our time.