Lemon Parade

Lemon Parade--August 10, 2017

“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.” (Ephesians 1:17-19)

It’s news so good, so deep, so intimately personal, that it seems hard to believe it could be true. But once you see it, it changes everything.

And the news is simply (simply!) this: the Creator of the universe—the Maker of the vast interstellar distances of galaxies and the vast dark expanses of space, and the Designer of the infinitesimal and intricate patterns woven into every strand of DNA in every cell of your body—that Creator not only knows you exist but loves you in all your particularity.  And not only does this Creator love you, but wants you to know more and more fully what it is to be beloved. 


This One we have met in Jesus wants us to know... him.  And not just to know about him, but to know him himself, the way you come to know a friend or your child or your parents.  And then, amazingly beyond all that, this same Christ cares about whether you know you can trust him to take care of you, that he is strong enough to guard and guide you. 

My goodness, I don’t even expect the president, or the governor of my state, or even the mayor of my town to know who I am or, truthfully, to care much about my life and my livelihood (sorry, I guess that makes me a cynic).  And yet here I come face to face with the word from the Scriptures that none other than the Ruler of the universe, of all that is, seen and unseen, wants me to know him, to relate to him, and to be safe in his love.  How does that not boggle your mind?

There was a song by the 1990s band Tonic, called “Lemon Parade,” whose first verse went like this:

I wish I’d seen you as a little girl/ Without your armor to fend off the world.

I would have kept you underneath my wing/ I would protect you from everything.

There’s something of that same spirit in these verses from Ephesians—Paul says he wants us to know just how great God’s power is, so that we will know that God intends to use it for us, to guard us and hold us.  Paul says he wants us to know just what God has to give to us.  Paul says he wants us to know we have a hope to hold onto that is not just wishful thinking. 


All of that is to say, Paul wants us to be able to see with new eyes--to see more fully and deeply than we ever had before--what it is to be beloved... and to let that vision change the way we see ourselves and every other beloved person on the planet.


Rather than putting up defenses or pretending we are tough enough ourselves to take on the hurts and troubles of each day, Paul prays that we would be so aware of what God intends to give to us and do for us that we won’t feel the need any longer to run off after other defenders, other loves, other lesser…things to fill the empty space inside us.

Think about that—God wants us to know “the immeasurable greatness of his power… for us.”  It’s not just that God wants to show off or needs the divine ego to be stroked with our fawning praise.  It’s that God wants us to know, with all of our armor stripped away, that he really will and does keep us underneath his wings.  God shows us this power, not just for its own sake, but always as a power for us and for our benefit.

So when we sing songs of praise on Sunday mornings, and we ascribe to God words like “Power and riches and wisdom and strength,” we are doing it for two reasons: one, is just that it’s the truth about God, and it deserves to be said for its own sake as the truth, I suppose.  But they would all be true about God whether we said them or not.  So the second reason we heap up these words of praise about God’s power is so that we would be reminded of God’s strength and know we can rely on it.  We sing those songs on Sundays, and at whatever other times they are on our lips, so that we can hear God’s strong promise to you, to me:  “I will keep you underneath my wing… I will protect you.”  We sing these songs, we offer praise, in part because it changes our vision and enables us to see the world as people who are held by a Love that will not let us go.

Sing God’s praise somewhere along the way today.  Sing it full and deep.  Sing about God’s awesome power, because that is true.


Sing, and let the praise strip away all the defense mechanisms, self-congratulation, fake bluster, and fabricated armor we put on ourselves to make ourselves feel tougher than we are... so that we can know, really know, that even with nothing else, we are kept safe in the shadow of God's wings.  We really are so beloved.  You really are so beloved... and so is everybody else on God's green earth.

Sing praise, whether you feel like it at the moment or not, because it is worth doing and God is worthy of it regardless of how we feel at any given time.


But when you sing, listen to the words yourself—and know you are held in strong arms.  Let your vision be changed.

Lord God, be strong for us, and let us see and know that you promise to use your strength for our good.  We ask it in the strong name of Jesus.