A Resounding Yes

When my grandson came to stay a few days last week, I found that his vocabulary had increased exponentially since the last time I had seen him.  “Bubbles,” “shoes,” and “ball” were just a few of his new verbal expressions.  And, of course, the all-powerful “no.”  Being a very active little 16 month old, I can only imagine why this particular word would be so familiar to him.  “No, Jude, that’s hot.”  “No, Jude, that’s Daddy’s.”  “No, Jude, you can’t play in the water right now.”  “No, Jude, don’t hit Maddie” (the dog), etc.  And certainly nothing is uncommon about any of those expressions to a child.  That is, after all, one of the ways a child learns.  And quite honestly, I couldn’t help but grin a little bit when he would run from me while shaking his head and saying, “No!”  At least for now, it’s still cute.

But at times as he would shake his head “no,” I would nod my head and say, “Yes, that’s pretty; but it belongs to G-Nan and it might break if we play with it.”  He would look at me and try to mimic the head motion that went up and down, but it just seemed too difficult and he would revert back to the shaking “no” movement – and smile.  The silly goose…

You’ve got to admit that an unqualified “Yes” is hard sell, not only to small children but to us adults as well.  Why is that?  Maybe it's because it takes such a leap of faith to say “yes.”  It means to risk in new and scary ways – and very often that risk involves relationships.  Think of a young woman with a man before her on his knee.  But as the Oscar Meyer commercial says about its new bacon, “In a world of no it’s nice to say yes.”  And that’s exactly what God did in Jesus Christ.  He risked it all and shouted a reverberating, “Yes!”

For Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God's ultimate "Yes."  

He always does what he says. For all of God's promises

have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding "Yes!"

And through Christ, our "Amen" (which means "Yes")

ascends to God for his glory (2 Cor. 1:20).