Today’s passage is Luke 1:1-25. Luke that, since he investigated the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, he decided to write an orderly account for Theophilus. The priest Zechariah was in the temple burning incense when Gabriel appeared and said his wife, the long barren Elizabeth, would bear a son who was to be named John, who would have the spirit of Elijah and bring back many people to God. Because Zechariah didn’t believe Gabriel he was told he wouldn’t be able to talk until John was born. Elizabeth became pregnant.
Why does Gabriel say that John will turn the hearts of fathers to their children? How does Elizabeth know that God has made her pregnant?
When I read that John would “turn the hearts of fathers to their children” (17), I was astonished to see those words because I’d never seen them before!
I’ve read Luke’s gospel many times but I never saw those words.
I wondered if God had sneaked them in when I wasn’t looking.
I had to check other versions of the Bible to make sure they were there.
Not only were they definitely there, they were a repetition of words spoken by the prophet Malachi, but leaving out the last part: “He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers” (Mal 4:6).
These lines struck me like a pot hit to my head.
Why hadn’t I seen them before?
I couldn’t see them because my heart wasn’t turned to my children.
My heart was turned to myself and my worldly desires. And to a degree I find uncomfortable, my heart is still turned to myself.
Verse 17 convicts me of what I’m coming to see as my mother of sins, my failure to love.
Even though there were moments in my past when I was aware of my failure to love my children as a Christian father, I hadn’t turned enough to God to turn to them.
When I was in grad school and desperately poor, my children were small and unaware of how poor we were.
They were little kids, full of fun and full of trouble.
Too often I lost my temper with them. I wrote a poem about that and although I’ve lost the poem, I remember two lines describing my children: “If only I could see them truly, not as cumbrances on my selfishness.”
The older my children became, the more my heart turned from them.
I wished them gone so I could be free to live for myself!
Since coming to Wooridle and seeing my sins more clearly and more deeply, the sins against my children have led to my confession, my repentance, my repeated apologies, and efforts at reconciliation even to the giving of money I withheld from them when they were younger.
I bought windows for my son’s house, I bought a vacation for my stepdaughter and her family, I bought a college education for my daughter Erika. I pray for them every day. Only one has turned to the Lord.
Next month my American daughter comes to stay with me for a few months and go to my school.
For the first few years of her life, my heart was turned to her mother, not her.
I made her as the way to capture her mother in marriage.
But I had no marriage, only a little daughter, who lived with her mother and whom I visited once a year and talked to on the phone a few times every month.
I interpret her coming to live with me as my chance to turn my heart to her.
Lord have mercy on us!
Application: to turn my heart to my daughter Tess.
Lord, forgive my selfish lack of love for my children, inspire me with the love you have for me, never turning your heart away.
