Revealing Trends
Saw a poll on Facebook asking if people liked or disliked gender reveal parties.
Mostly, I just find them odd. Why is it such a big deal?
But then, I recalled an observation my dad had after many years of officiating weddings- as marriage has had less and less of an impact on people in our culture, the weddings became bigger and more elaborate. Our simple promises are no longer sufficient to make a marriage work- we have easy divorce, and many people never get married at all. So people try to make it important- to throw as big and awesome a wedding as possible to make it stick, to make it mean something.
I wonder.
In our society, we keep being told that gender is practically like a set of clothing. A thing you can take off or put on, that has no bearing on the rest of your life. Instead of recognizing the deep bone and blood differences between sexes, everything is asserted to be merely cosmetic. Not lasting or meaningful, something that could be swapped out if at any time you feel uncomfortable with the role you've had so far.
Maybe, like big weddings, gender reveal parties are a way of people trying to make it feel meaningful again. They know there's something important buried under there, but they don't know how to really dig it up and appreciate it. So there's spectacle instead. Throw more colors and glitter on it. Set off fireworks. It's like they're throwing up road flares because they lost the map and don't know how to get back home.
It is Good Friday, the day when our God died- he went to the one place nobody thought he could, the ultimate off the map location. And we know that he came back, too. To a lost world, he is the ultimate guide, the one who's literally been everywhere and still knows the way home, because He himself is the Way. And to a lost world aching to find something meaningful at last, He is the only answer that could possibly satisfy that search.
If you have Him, you don't need elaborate parties to give something worth.
Mostly, I just find them odd. Why is it such a big deal?
But then, I recalled an observation my dad had after many years of officiating weddings- as marriage has had less and less of an impact on people in our culture, the weddings became bigger and more elaborate. Our simple promises are no longer sufficient to make a marriage work- we have easy divorce, and many people never get married at all. So people try to make it important- to throw as big and awesome a wedding as possible to make it stick, to make it mean something.
I wonder.
In our society, we keep being told that gender is practically like a set of clothing. A thing you can take off or put on, that has no bearing on the rest of your life. Instead of recognizing the deep bone and blood differences between sexes, everything is asserted to be merely cosmetic. Not lasting or meaningful, something that could be swapped out if at any time you feel uncomfortable with the role you've had so far.
Maybe, like big weddings, gender reveal parties are a way of people trying to make it feel meaningful again. They know there's something important buried under there, but they don't know how to really dig it up and appreciate it. So there's spectacle instead. Throw more colors and glitter on it. Set off fireworks. It's like they're throwing up road flares because they lost the map and don't know how to get back home.
It is Good Friday, the day when our God died- he went to the one place nobody thought he could, the ultimate off the map location. And we know that he came back, too. To a lost world, he is the ultimate guide, the one who's literally been everywhere and still knows the way home, because He himself is the Way. And to a lost world aching to find something meaningful at last, He is the only answer that could possibly satisfy that search.
If you have Him, you don't need elaborate parties to give something worth.