Paradox, Romans 8, and Horseradish Slaw

Today was one of my best days, after a week that may have been one of the worst. There were many highlights. The morning started with a good cup of coffee. At lunch I enjoyed some of the best barbeque in Western Missouri. It was accented by a cup of savory horseradish slaw.  A little later I got to ride on a mower for a while, taking in some  belated scents of Spring. The day ended with a bit of a walk and a bit of a jog while my daughter rode along side me on her bike. It was epic stuff.

As the day draws to a close, the word that sticks with me though is paradox. We're all a bit paradoxical. I perhaps more than most. I love the State of Missouri and consider myself a Missourian through-and-through. But I went to graduate school at Kansas, taught there for a while, and somehow raised a bunch of rabid Jayhawk basketball fans. The two make odd cultural bedfellows, but somehow that combination has worked, although I would hardly say it defines me.

So after my morning cup of Joe, I loaded up my family--at least those still at home--and headed south to Osceola, Mo. We traveled much of the same route that William Lane's Jayhawkers traveled some 150 years ago when the sacked the rebel stronghold of Osceola. That September, 1861 evening of plunder and destruction and execution still rubs raw on some folks in these parts. It's strange to have roots in both places.

But our travels today were much nobler and less political. We visited the First Baptist Church of Osceola where our son Davis had been asked to preach as part of a preaching symposium sponsored by his church--Freshwater--in Bolivar, Mo.

It was a proud day for Sandee and me, and in the midst of Davis's outstanding sermon I was struck with another paradox of sorts. The son that I had taught was now teaching me. It was a powerful realization, that God had worked with what we had done, or more accurately worked in spite of it, and had grown Davis up into a man that could, and would, rightly divide the Word of Truth. Sandee and I had taught him to read, to tie his shoes, to ride a bike, to swing a golf club, and even some things of God, but here he was giving us new insight into the Apostle Paul's Letter to the Romans. It was a day that parents can only dream of when they're changing diapers and cleaning highchairs and administering timeouts or groundings and all the other things that in their midst seem like they will never matter.

But in a day of paradoxes, Davis confronted us with the ultimate paradox. He showed us anew that for us to be exalted, Another had to be humbled. He showed us that the road to Glory is paved with suffering. He showed us that perfect justice has its companion in grace. And he showed us that in breaking the chains of the law, Christ set us free to the law of the Spirit of life.

Paradox, Romans 8, and horseradish slaw. It was a great day. Perhaps the best.