Just Word- Shoulders

Shoulders

Lora Parsons

The Ashland Beacon

My thoughts for this month’s word—shoulders—come from Deuteronomy 33:12, which says: “About Benjamin he said: ‘Let the beloved of the LORD rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the LORD loves rests between his shoulders.’” The one the Lord loves rests between His SHOULDERS? What a weird way to describe the protection and comfort that our Lord offers us...between His shoulders. I first imagine someone’s back…the area between their shoulder blades. Not the first place I think about planting myself on someone when I'm looking for comfort or protection. I think people would probably look at me kind of strange if I went up and placed my cheek on their upper back. That’s weird! It seems like an episode of Friends—a silly Phoebe-like thing to do that everyone else tries and laughs at through the whole episode.

My next thought about the shoulders of the Lord in this context, though, was one of those "dork" moments that I admittedly have too often. The shoulders are on the front of the body, too. Facepalm. Maybe the verse is just talking about a hug...that's where your head would rest on someone if you were between their shoulders on the front side of their body. I don’t really think that’s the case, but I did think through that for a bit when I first read this.

If that was what was meant, then why didn't the writer just say that the Lord hugs those He loves, or that the one the Lord loves rests in His embrace? They wouldn't make a Friends episode about Phoebe getting hugs from people. That’s a standard, socially acceptable way we give and receive comfort from others. Maybe this “between the shoulders” part is just that—a hug from Jesus. And, if so, then for us to physically hug someone, our arms have to be emptied of other things. In order to hold us, our Lord's arms can’t be full. Whatever He may be carrying for anyone else, He seems to momentarily lay aside when it comes time to meet the needs, I bring to Him (except we also know He doesn’t really have to do that at all since He’s big enough to carry all of our everything’s).

In His empty, scarred hands are simultaneously the words of life, the command of the waves, the healing of the blind, whatever you might need, and whatever I might need for a day on this dust-covered planet. He emptied Himself for all of us at once, so that He could provide us with whatever He knows is best. That means His comfort for me is a result of emptiness for Him. Protection for me is a result of what He laid down on the cross. And, while it is comforting on one level to know that He willingly provides these for me, it draws me into Him even more to know that He knows the emptiness I sometimes feel. He knows how it feels to have to lay down things that matter and that doing so is sometimes so hard for us. He knows my brokenness and comforts it into a beauty that I may never understand but can love nevertheless, because it causes Him to draw me even closer to that weird, warm resting place between His shoulders. Maybe that spot is just a hug; maybe it is just simply holding us while we cry on His chest, but His own emptying means He gets my empty.

The best news about His emptying, though, lies in the fact that His was temporary. Yes, He emptied Himself of His very life in order to pave the way for all of us to get to the Father, but that only lasted for three days. With Easter coming up, we would be remiss not to talk about the greatest emptying of all—the tomb. Because it emptied—because He walked out of it victorious over death, the one thing that we all are guaranteed to encounter before we leave this planet—we know we, with His help, can also be victorious over all of the smaller things that we’ll encounter in our lives. Our guaranteed end won’t be the permanent end of our story, either. We stand to face a moment before God where we will be resting upon the shoulders of Jesus if we’ve chosen a relationship with Him. Maybe we’ll be standing with our cheek pressed against the back of His shoulders, with Jesus advocating for us before the throne, hidden behind His mercy and grace, hearing Him say…” This one’s mine.” Maybe we’ll be standing in His warm embrace, facing the Father, presented as His, steadied by His arms around us.

Or, perhaps, it will be us resting on the tops of His shoulders, Him carrying the full weight of all of our sin, our mess-of-a-self laid before a righteous God only because Jesus made that way possible. Whatever it looks like, we get to approach the throne accompanied by Jesus, escorted by His love. And, until that moment, we can march forward along whatever path life takes us down, knowing that we occupy that same spot daily. We get to walk in the comfort of the verse: “the one the Lord loves rests between His shoulders.”