A Grandfather in Fifth Grade

It was Grandfather’s Day at the local elementary school, and that inimitable gift of God, a grandson, had staked his claim on me. Other things could be postponed. The real priority that day was Billy. So I found myself sitting in a seat entirely too small for me, in a room smelling of pencil grindings and sweat, surrounded by ten-year-olds and their teachers.

As I looked around and listened, Billy’s classroom sparked memories of my own days in what we used to call “grammar school.” And as I recalled pranks (others’, of course) involving pigtails and inkwells, two important truths came to mind. One was the absolute genius of a good fifth-grade teacher. She seemed to be able to take almost anything from the creation about her and use it for an object lesson. The most commonplace things became the means of opening up the world of knowledge to a child.

A second truth I recalled was the thrill of learning. The light in Billy’s eye and the shine on his face as he shared some of his discoveries with me was enough to bring elation to the toughest old grandfather’s heart. A good teacher can make one see; and when one sees, it is always satisfying.

My return to this wonderful world of chalk dust and times-tables resurrected a line of thought that started long ago and has become more impressive to me as the years have passed: God really must be the fifth-grade teacher of all fifth-grade teachers.

That conviction began when I first tried to dig out a better understanding of the Gospels, particularly John. In these books documenting our Lord’s ministry, Jesus seemed able to find materials anywhere with which to enlighten his hearers: the water drawn from the well to quench their thirst at journey’s end; the bread from which they made their meal; the vine with its branches so ever present in that world and so vital to their lives; the gate of the sheepfold and particularly the shepherd who led his flock out for pasture and in for safety; the very light that encompassed all by day and even the darkness that clothed their world at night; the seasons that came and went and the soils the Palestinian farmers worked. The whole of creation seemed compatible to his purposes. As the ultimate fifth-grade teacher, the Son of God found object lessons everywhere.

Like any good teacher, Jesus also drew his lessons from human relationships. He spoke of the king and his kingdom, masters and their servants, judges and those judged. A marriage became the symbol of his relationship with the church. He seemed to be most at home with the family, its members and its processes, as a special pedagogical device. He took the world we see and lifted our vision to the world we can’t see. He took the things of time and made them pointers to the eternal. And he could start anywhere.

But it was more than a teacher’s creative imagination that led Jesus to see the connection between creation and eternity. The compatibility of the world with his purposes is part of God’s great plan to redeem his people. The world he made so perfectly fit his character that when he was here, he could use it to teach us. His pedagogical concerns did not originate when he called the twelve.

That, of course, would mean that all of creation was made in such a way that with open eyes and the Holy Spirit’s leading, we can see God’s nature through it. But so many times we miss those object lessons, or see them too dimly to learn anything, which may have inspired these words of the great hymn writer, Charles Wesley:

Long my imprisoned spirit lay

Fast bound in sin and nature’s night.

Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,

I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;

My chains fell off, my heart was free;

I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

We, too, are often imprisoned by “nature’s night” and desperately need a quickening ray and a flaming light. Lately I have found myself asking God for more light. And for more fifth-grade teachers.

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