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 I remember reading to my children when they were very small. We started with books that had big colorful pictures in them. The words on the page weren’t the focus for our story time. Instead the focus was to point to a picture and say what it was. Point to a ball and say, “ball.” Point to a flower and say, “flower.”
As time progressed we could turn the page and I could ask where the ball or flower was and then they pointed to it. We moved, eventually, to colors and shapes. And then began the letters and words.
It was part of growing up. I could have read encyclopedias to my children at a young age, but there would have been no comprehension. Not because they were foolish or incompetent, but because they weren’t ready.
At gradual points of their growing up they had to move out of the shadows of infancy, then adolescence, to finally become adults.
Each thing they did along the way prepared them for the next step. It wasn’t an overnight process, it took years and years. God wants us to move out of the shadows to mature as well. He wants us to live in the light of His love and grace.
But an even greater picture isn’t just one of our lives, but of what God has been doing throughout history. He has continued to reveal Himself to His people as centuries have unfolded.
The Book of Hebrews points out that God has been teaching and revealing Himself throughout human history. That God was using the prophets and patriarchs and even the Tabernacle to point the way to Christ and God’s plan for those who would follow Him. The things of the Old Testament were just “shadows” (Hebrews 8:5-10:1) of the “reality” that we find in Jesus Christ. It was no mistake that Christ came to earth or that He died. It was “foreshadowed” in the Old Testament.
God calls us out of the shadows of childhood and into a maturity in our walk with Him.
If my children, who are now adults, still couldn’t read the first books with which we started, if they couldn’t understand the basics of shapes and colors and letters, then something is seriously wrong.
The writer of Hebrews says that not only was the Old Testament a shadow of the reality found in Christ, he also says that the readers of his letter need to grow up and become the people God intended. They ought to be teachers, but they keep going back to milk and baby food! (Hebrews 5:12-14)
This summer we are going to look at this marvelous book of Hebrews. Our challenge is to grow up. We need to move out of the shadows and into the light.
I’ll see you this Sunday.
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