Recently I heard a man1 tell a story of how he as a kid in fourth grade had wronged his grandfather. Let’s give this man the name Bob. A friend came over to Bob’s house, and Bob invited him to join him on his daily errand of feeding his grandfather’s pony. Together they went to his grandfather’s nearby farm.
As Bob took care of the pony, his friend noticed four cases of canning jars. His friend suggested they break them. For some reason, Bob agreed to it, and they broke all the jars.
As Bob the adult told this story, he explained that he had no reason to go along with breaking the jars, because he loved his grandfather. He went to church with him every week. He and his family lived in a house built on his grandfather’s farm.
Sadly, Bob’s boyhood friend did not stop with breaking the canning jars. He found cases of light bulbs and suggested breaking those. After they did, they went on breaking glass. They found storm windows for the house and broke them all. They looked around for more glass to break and came upon his grandfather’s truck. Each window they shattered. Then the windows of the barn, all except for one window where the pony was kept.
Finally Bob’s “friend” left, and he walked home petrified at what he had done. He did not sleep that night. For three days he heard nothing about their crimes. Then he came home from school and found his grandfather’s car in the driveway.
“Did you break the windows out of the barn?” his grandfather asked. He suspected Bob had done it because the only window left unbroken was by the pony. Bob admitted it, but did not bring up breaking anything else.
The next day, when he returned home from school, his grandfather’s car was again in the driveway. “Did you break all the canning jars and light bulbs and storm windows?” his grandfather asked. Bob admitted doing those things but did not bring up other wrongdoing.
The next day, when he returned home from school his grandfather’s car was again in the driveway. “Did you break the truck windows?” his grandfather asked, his voice raised in anger. Bob said yes. “Someone’s got to pay for this,” his grandfather said, to teach Bob a lesson. “Do you have any money?” Bob had $5, and he went and got his money and brought it to his grandfather.
Breaking holy things
When I heard Bob tell this story, I could only cringe at the wrongness—the evil—of what he had done to his grandfather. Now as an adult, “Bob” said the same thing.
How does hearing this story affect you? Beyond its lessons for human relations, it gives us a figurative glimpse of how we should feel about sinning against God’s commandments. When we transgress a command from God, he feels as the grandfather did. We have violated his holiness.
Breaking even one of God’s commandments is more wrong, more unthinkable than we comprehend. We might think we have “just” broken one commandment, but that is like saying you only broke one windshield of the truck—only it is infinitely worse than even that. The perfection of God’s holiness makes breaking even one of his commandments an infinitely serious evil. Each one of us over our lifetimes has broken God’s commands thousands of times, in deeds far more evil than the breaking of a few thousand dollars of a kindhearted grandfather’s glass. Our guilt is beyond human comprehension. The shards of shattered glass can only be undone through Jesus.
- I heard this story while evaluating a preacher’s sermons and theology. I disagree with him on significant things, which is why I have not included his name.
