Letter To Our Children

Hello Friends,

One day, in your schooling, if it hasn’t happened yet, you will learn about Marie Antoinette. Marie was the last queen of France, who did and said some bad things, part of which led to the French Revolution. She, like everyone, was broken.

When Marie was placed under house arrest, she wrote letters to a friend beginning in the summer of 1791. These letters are kept in the French national archives.

The letters are not the originals, but copies done by the friend she had written to. What is curious, for some unknown reason, an unknown person scribbled out certain words and sentences with big loops of ink. Think here of a person writing a letter with ink on paper and a mistake is made, a word misspelled, or their minds were changed, and they scribbled over it in ink, so what was there can no longer be seen.

It’s no surprise most are very curious about the bad things well-known people do, say, and write, and Maria Antoinette’s letters made people very curious. What words were scribbled over, and why? Did she write something outrageous? Shocking? People had to know.

For nearly 150 years, no one knew what was behind the scribbles; until researchers used a technique called X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy, which can look past the scribbles of ink to see the actual words which are behind them. This means it is now impossible to scribble out something we write on paper without the potential of what we scribbled out being known. Scribbles cannot hide anything anymore.

What is true in pen on paper has always been true with God. The Bible says nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before (His eyes). No one can hide anything from God, not even what we are thinking. All the ink in the world cannot block God from knowing what we wrote, why we wrote it, or what we did. Like Marie’s letters, everything is uncovered.

If a person is not a Christian, they should be very concerned. If they are a Christian, this should make them very thankful for Christ and His death on the cross for all the wrong things we have said, written, and done.

The Gospel of Christ tells us we will never be perfect in this life. We will do bad things, and God will see them all. The writer of Hebrews is not making an excuse for those bad things; they are just telling the truth. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet He did not sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

Jesus is the high priest who died for all the bad things we have said, done, and wrote. Later in the letter, it says, and by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:10) I thank God this is true. Being made holy is our only hope.

When the scientist finished uncovering all the scribbles in Marie’s letters, to their surprise, they didn’t find anything too interesting. They were looking for some dirt (bad things Marie wrote), and they found none.

We don’t have to try to hide anything from God. We do not need to scribble over our mistakes. Christ has died for them; they are blotted out with His blood. His word says Christians are holy in His sight, without blemish, and free from accusation. (Colossians 1:22) God will never look for dirt on Christians because, in Christ, there is none. That’s grace. That’s the Gospel. That’s what Jesus accomplished by His suffering and death on the cross. We still sin; it is wrong, but they are covered, and godly people know this.

God bless you in all things this week.

Pastor Joe

P.S. When our kids were little, we asked them to please not hide the wrong things they would do. We promised we would forgive them and help them, like God in Christ did for us. It didn't always go perfectly but it was very healthy for all of us.