My Dad is Dying – Part 2

Part 2 – Somebody has to pay.

So, I’ve been wrestling the past couple years with how crappy my relationship with my Dad is. The reason our relationship was so messed up is because we are broken people. We are crooked. We are proud and selfish. This sin was in both of us. For a long time I thought that I had dealt with my side of the problem.  So, I was just waiting for him to deal with his side. I tried to think of ways I could get him to admit his failures, but this became extremely frustrating. I found myself constantly thinking about how screwed up we were and what needed to happen in order to fix it. This is a miserable state to be in. So I finally gave up on that. I realized that even if I got him to fix his side of things, it wouldn’t really heal my heart. I needed something much deeper. I needed a perfect Dad, and he needed a perfect Son.

I was reading this book, Death By Love: Letters from the cross. In Death By Love, Mark Driscoll shares very personal pastoral letters that he wrote to different members of his church who were going through some extremely painful trials. The chapter about Jesus being our New Covenant Sacrifice began the much needed healing in my heart. In this chapter, this guy’s wife admitted that not too long ago she had slept with one of his “friends” at their home in the very same bed he and she shared. She cheated on him while he was away at work providing for his family. He was furious. “I want blood,” the guy said. Pastor Mark told him, “You deserve it. They both should die.”

But Mark then went on to explain that he got his blood at the cross of Jesus.

As I meditated on that, I realized that I wanted my Dad to pay. I wanted justice, and that is a good thing to want. But I also realized that total justice had been accomplished on the cross. Jesus’ bloody death on a wooden cross was the sacrifice that paid for the sin curse between me and my Dad. Our sin was nailed to that cross. All sin is ultimately against God. Sin is ”building your identity—your self-worth and happiness—on anything other than God.” So, everyone who has ever wronged me has been nailed to that cross. And I was nailed to that cross as well.

I then began to picture my Dad and I at the foot of the cross drinking the communion cup together, remembering and celebrating what God had done for us. I imagined drinking the cup and passing it to my Dad saying, “This was done for you. You died on that cross with Christ. and so did I.” And I was free. How could I not forgive my Dad, when the Son of God went through hell for me and him?

There is a Perfect Father. There is a Perfect Son.

This was still only the beginning. The story of redemption continues. I still hadn’t realized how much I needed to pay. But this gave me hope. God was ripping out the bitterness in my heart. And as much as that hurt, it was a good hurt.