Words matter

Last night several of us on the children’s ministry team had a watch party for the annual children’s ministry training conference.  

In between girly chit-chat and protecting our French fries from the dog’s wildly wagging tail, we heard enough of the speaker to spend the rest of the evening debating whether there’s a difference between the words “familiarity” and “intimacy,” and whether it’s acceptable to say God has a nickname.

{Consensus: maybe, and no.}

This debate is related to my aversion to cutesy/punny church marquees.  There are several I pass regularly and I always read them cringing, like how you can’t help but rubberneck at an accident scene.  Today I passed one that read, “Don’t make me come down there —God.”

So many thoughts.

First of all, it’s supposed to be funny because it’s channeling what every frustrated dad is reputed to say when his kids are being annoying; which conjures up either a fearsome abuser whose anger is about to overtake him and who’ll be wielding a belt when he “comes in there,” or—more likely—a blustering man whose children are probably laughing at him.  Either way, the dad in this cliche definitely does not want to come down there.

As a descriptor of God, neither image is accurate.

Second of all, God did “come down there”…which is so obvious and so central to Christianity that maybe that’s the point?  But when God came down here, it was the most blessed and most miraculous, joyful event in human history, so if that’s what it’s referring to, I don’t understand why it’s phrased as a threat…?

Thirdly, though God Incarnate did “come down there,” we didn’t “make” Him.  God chose, in His most mysterious and gracious and utter free will, to be born a human and suffer outrageous torture and injustice.  He didn’t get fed up with our sin such that He lost His self-control.  

Fourth, “Don’t make me come down there” implies that God, like the road-trip dad with obnoxious giggling kids in the backseat, is warning us to pull it together enough to stop annoying Him; whereas the true God is deeply invested in His human creatures and wants more than just quiet neutrality so He can read the road signs up ahead—He actually demands active holiness.  And the Bible, just as clearly as it demands holiness, informs us that we aren’t holy, that we can’t be holy, and our only hope lies in receiving the holiness of Another—that very One who already came down.

Fifth, and maybe this is what the sign is referring to, God has promised that He will come back down here.  But it’s not a threat: If you don’t behave I’ll come.  It’s a promise: I will come, whether My coming is welcome to you or not.

And the Bible assures us that Christ’s second coming is no flippant matter.  He will come to collect His own for glory, and to render judgement on an unrepentant world.  His judgement is not that of an out-of-control megalomaniac, an impotent weakling, or an indecisive leader subject to human whims.  His judgement will be just, final, and utterly under His control.

If that sounds frightening, then you understand why I’m dismayed by signs, put out by those who are supposed to be entrusted with this message, which seem to aim only for a chuckle at the expense of reverence.