
It was a birthday with a Zero, so it was considered more special than the nine before it. The three of us sat in the front room, my husband and daughter very excited for me to open the box on my lap.
“Okay, here goes” I said leaning into their anticipation, the box contained another wrapped present which as I opened, I saw the holiday brochure. My audience stared at my face, not wanting to miss a moment of the reaction. My heart sank, like really sank as I looked at the Butlins brochure in my hands. I fought to put a overwhelmed look on but the tears defied me and started to well up in the corners of my eyes. “Ha, wow” I said not really pulling it off.
In the next 30 seconds a full range of emotions swept through me, “I live with these guys every day and they don’t know me, they don’t know me at all” was the prominent one, then guilt, then love because they were still looking very joyful at their gift. For me ( and please don’t be offended if this isn’t you) but this kind of holiday would be up there with having my eyes poked out with a stick on my scale of fun things to do.
“The voucher is in the middle, look at the voucher” said my daughter, still bubbly and enthused….perhaps I was hiding this better than I thought.
The voucher was actually not for Butlins at all it was for a great holiday in the states, the brochure was a ruse, a prank. We do a brutal level of humour in our house. Turns out they knew me pretty well after all.
To be fully known is not something we can even claim for ourselves though is it? No matter how persistently we claw away at the layers and motivations of our self there will always be parts that only God knows. In scripture the word “known” has a far more intimate connotation than mere acquaintance. There is a world of difference between knowing something and knowing someone.
In Hebrew the word translates as ‘yada’ and in regards to someone, it means to enter into a covenantal relationship, an intimacy. When we read in Genesis “Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived…”, the word “know” is being used in its covenant sense. This doesn’t just refers to the physical knowing but to the becoming one flesh, the intimate bond of revealing all you are to the other and remaining faithful and present. English translations can often use the word ‘chosen’.
So when Jesus tells us “I know my sheep” this goes far beyond just a nodding, naming and herding. This is being fully, intimately and deeply known.
“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear” Timothy Keller
I think how much of our relationships hinge on what people don’t know about us, the secret thoughts, the regrettable choices all those things that we feel would make us rejected and unacceptable, unworthy of being ‘Chosen’ if they were shared and known. Yet here we are under the gaze of a shepherd who knows it all, sees every last flawed thought, every selfish act and then still chooses the cross.
It’s here, in this fold that we are fully known and still fully, fully loved. There are no secrets here, He is stripped and laid bare for you so that you can be assured in the safety of being laid bare before Him as He slowly reveals you and your purpose to yourself.
Thankyou Jesus.