#99-Not Facial Hair

"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about."
                                                       -G.K. Chesterton


I heard this parable once about a 6 year old girl who asked her dad the S-E-X question. Her dad was silent. He then asked his daughter to help him by carrying his suitcase out to his car as he left for work. His daughter walked across the room to the suitcase and tried picking it up, but the suitcase wouldn't budge. She tried lifting the suitcase again, but this time with more effort, yet once again, it was clear that the child was no match for the weight of the suitcase...

The child whined to her daddy that the suitcase was too big for her to carry, and only someone as big as her dad would be able to lift it. Her dad responded, "that's right. And just like you will only be able to handle that suitcase when you are older and bigger, there are also certain questions that are too big for you handle at your age, but when you are bigger, those questions will be light enough for you to carry. And that question you just asked me is one of those questions that is too heavy for you to handle at this time."

The child understood.

Practically Speaking

When I was a child, I asked questions that weren't too heavy for me to lift. They just simply ticked people off. One time I made a Sunday School teacher cry when I asked if God can do anything. She said yes. I then asked if He could make a rock big enough that he could not lift it anymore.

The next question I asked was why women were allowed to talk in church when I Cor. 14:34 and I Timothy 2:11 expressly forbade it (bonus points for it being in the new testament).

But the one that I actually really wanted an answer for....Why can't guys wear facial hair in church?

The standard answer was a half-mumble and ultimately was left with..."Someday you'll understand."

Well I'm 24 now and I think i finally understand....

The typical response goes something along the lines now adays of how in the 1960's, facial hair became a sign of rebellion, and thus we forbade it. And now we just don't want to offend the older generations and the culture they abide by.

I completely agree. If  I must die to my beard wishes in order to please the concerned eyes of the elders, I submit.

A secondary response goes something along the lines of asking if you would go to a job interview with facial hair. And then linking church to a job interview.....

Righty Right....Nothing like letting a job interview be your frame of reference for how your church is to be run...

The rebellious may point out that since we are a holy people who go about our lives with distinction from the world and distinction in gender, what better way to show gender distinction than to let men grow facial hair...

They may point out how in II Samuel 10, how a bunch of Israeli soldiers had their beards cut off from their enemy which was a point of humiliation, and how David would not allow these soldiers back in camp until their beards had grown back...but really who is David really that we need to be applying his precedent?

But as anyone can see, the points of both sides of whether or not facial hair should/ should not be allowed are very conflicting but valid. And I, as a tormented son of the age, want nothing but the truth....

So the same question i asked as a kid of why we couldn't have facial hair in church still arises in my conflicted mind to this day....

But loyal reader and disloyal enemy alike, I believe I have found the answer....of why facial is in no way a good idea for us as Christians representing Christ to the world....

And it revolves around this simply, cliche question....What would Jesus Do?

And aye friend, you may think that Jesus would have had a beard. You may even think that Jesus did have a beard. And while I do not deny this fact, I think our true precedent for Jesus and facial hair should come to the only verse we have about Jesus and facial hair: A prophecy about Him in Isaiah 50:6 that informs us they his beard was plucked by his persecutors. So we know that Jesus had a beard....

But we also know that while He was on the cross, He did not have the beard....

So then the question comes my friend which precedent of Jesus are we to follow?

Jesus with a beard, or beardless Jesus?

And as you and me both know, the cross is our mission, for we must lose our lives and pick up the cross in order to be saved (Matthew 10:38), and with the cross as the height of all Christianity, we must follow the example of the one who stood on that cross...

And of course, it was Jesus without the beard who stood on the cross....

And therein my friends is our answer to why facial hair is a sin....

And also rumor has it that witches themselves understand that there is power behind having your face shaved....