Hair Security

I won Mr. Sarcastic as a high school student.  I know some of you may be shocked, but if you take my openness and creativity, and mix it with an uncensored high school tongue, you get Mr. Sarcastic of Lutheran High KC.  Like all of us, time, maturity, and growth tamed my tongue; yet the history of my sarcastic remarks lingers in my memories.  My dad took most of the hits when it came to hair.  The bald jokes just always seemed funny.  Often his trio of teenagers would team up to say some hurtful bald jokes.  My dad had most of his hair; he was just missing a section behind a small tuff of hair that sat just above his forehead.  It was kind of like the red sea of hair parted with this flying loose tuft, then the dry land, and the rest of his hair.  Even my recollection of our jokes, brings me back to providing sarcastic descriptions.  At some point I feared God would punish me, and therefore I would suffer the consequences with a balding head far worse than my dad ever had.   At that point I quit making fun of him and worked hard to steer clear of such jokes.

This wasn’t the only time in my life I worried that God would give me some earthly punishment for my sins.  Honestly, it happened a lot.  If I had a list of my sins in front of you, I could tell you my fear of what God might take away in this life.  As I have explained before, this is defined as the theology of glory, and it is a trap into which we all can easily fall.  The basic premise is that you believe God will do something based upon on a good or bad action of yours.  This goes a step further than the basics of consequences, and moves into things that are uncontrollable--like balding.  It does remind me that we often look for security in things like hair.  We define ourselves in terms of physical features, things, or relationships.  Those are the securities we want to have, and we worry that if we lose them we will be devastated.  This is exactly where the passage this week brings us.  This is a famous line in Scripture, “But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.” Matthew 10:30.

This is one of those often-quoted Scripture passages.  The deep meaning found behind it is the intimate understanding Jesus has for each of us.  Balding or not, it is impossible to know the number of hairs on our own head, let alone on our spouses, kids and the like.  Some of our deepest and greatest relationships are left with unknown facts.  This is not so with our God.  He knows the amount of hair on our heads. This is the depth of our security in God, who would send His Son to rescue us.  Certainly, if He numbered all our hairs, He would want us to be secure in the relationship He has provided for us.