Thursday, May 14, 2009

Reflection on 1 John 4:7-21

The quick footsteps thudded off of the brick walls of the alley. With the snatched money grasped tight in his hand, the man glanced back over his shoulder and saw shadows of police and well-trained dogs racing across the pavement. They were close, much too close. His lungs were now wheezing. He could not handle it any longer. He turned a corner and searched for a safe place to hide. There was nowhere to hide. There was not even a garbage bin along the street. Feeling hopeless, the man pressed his heaving and wheezing chest against the wall. He waited for the dogs to turn the corner and tear into his leg.

He wished that he could get just one break in life…just one break. He filled his lungs to cry out a prayer of “Please” when he felt the small door knob pressing into his ribs. He glanced down to see a rusty door knob the size of which one might find on a cupboard. Strangely, it stuck right out of the brick wall. Attached was a worn price tag fluttering from the power of his labored breath. “Kern Furniture” it said on the front. On the back was the curious instruction, “Do not open unless you understand the eye.” He did not know what “the eye” was, but it seemed that his prayer had flown from his heart of its own accord.

With the sound of hounds just seconds away, the man pulled on the small knob. Opening a hidden brick door with relative ease, he slipped through the door to the safety inside.

He found himself closed away in a small room with a pillow, a small box of canned food, a can opener and a light shining from a single bulb hung overhead. The small room was a little cramped, but it was sound proof, and that was what he needed right now. He needed someplace sound proof and guilt proof; someplace where he did not need to face the world of fear beyond the hidden brick door.

After cracking open a can of baked beans and licking the last drips of sauce off of the rim, he sank back against the pillow and gazed toward the ceiling. That is when his tired eyes saw it. It was painted remarkably well, almost has if Michelangelo had been commissioned to paint the ceiling of this small room; above, next to the hanging light bulb, he saw the eye.

“It’s just a painting,” he said to himself, and rolled on his side to take a needed rest from life.

But, the eye stared at him. He quickly shut his eyes to eliminate this intruder's presence in his safe, small room. But, he knew it was there, staring at him. He took a quick glance out of the corner of his eye. Indeed, it was only a painting. The corner of the eye had an area where the paint had bubbled from moisture. Water collected in small, clinging droplets from this small imperfection. Despite that small obstruction, it continued its persistent stare.

“A painting, nothing more,” he thought.

But, it was something more. “Could a painting peer into your soul and read the story written there?” He fell into an uncertain sleep.

After what seemed to be days (how could you know, locked away in a little coffin such as the brick room), the man glared at the eye. Picking up one of the empty cans, he hurled it at the ceiling...at the eye. He continued hurling empty cans at the eye staring down from above. “What do you want with me,” he shouted at the eye. “Stop looking at me.” But, it did not stop. It just stared down; the eye of God, the eye that he feared, the only eye from whom he could not hide. “I cannot take this!” he screamed to no one in particular.

In a rage, the man pushed open the brick door only to stumble right into the arms of police running toward the small room.

Grabbing hold of the man's arm and wrestling him to the ground, officer Carl screamed, “The only place you are going to be running to is a jail cell.”

“Wait, you guys are still chasing me?” the man said dazed.

“You just turned the corner sir, have you lost your mind? Now, get up!”

As Carl strong armed the man toward the police cruiser, the man stuttered a story of spending days in the small room and tales of the eye…the hated eye.

“You think I’m crazy,” the man said to officer Carl.

Stopping next to the cruiser, Carl glanced around quickly, stared into the man’s eyes, and said in a hushed tone, “Two years ago my eight year old daughter, Maggie, was chased down this street by who we suspect to be a known child molester living in this neighborhood. She told us that she had escaped by hiding in a small room. We did not believe her, but she said that in the room was food, a pillow, and a loving angel who was watching over her the entire time. Get that, the eye of an angel from God was caring for her, protecting her. I found her on this very street. She seemed to be safe and happy. She was picking flowers from the cracks in the street, and giving them to people walking by. When I ran up to her, she had a whole handful of the beautiful things waiting for me. ‘I love you daddy' she whispered in my ear. I have never forgotten that. I have never forgotten her story.

Officer Carl lowered the man into the police cruiser and whispered into the man's ear, "I guess she understood the eye.” The man sat stunned as the cruiser pulled away.



Preacher William Sloane Coffin once stated that, "the opposite of love is not hate, it is fear." If you think God looks at you and judges you, then your life will be one lived out of fear. It will be a life of running and hiding. But, if you know God looks at you and loves you, then your life will be one of love. There will be no need to run and hide. I guess it all depends if you have heard the story of God’s love for the world; a love that will go to any length to reach you, even death on a cross. I guess it all depends if you understand the eye of God.

We understand this truth from 1 John, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” God is love. How would life in this world be different if everyone knew that God is love?



All Scripture quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyrighted, 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and is used by permission. All rights reserved.

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