Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away. So he said to his mother, “I am running away.”
“If you run away, “ said his mother, “I will run after you. For you are my little bunny.”
These are the opening words of The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown. We have a lot of children’s books in our house right now but there’s something special about this book. Runaway Bunny has never gone out of print since it was first published in 1942. Families still love reading it and passing it along today.
Maybe you’re thinking, “You got your Holidays wrong! It’s not Easter.” Well, I actually think The Runaway Bunny tells us about Christmas. I think we love this book because it whispers a greater story, the story of God pursuing us because he loves us. The story of the Bible and of Christmas is the story of us running away from God and God running after us.
“If you run after me,” said the little bunny, “I will become a fish in a trout stream and I will swim away from you.”
“If you become a fish in a trout stream,” said his mother, “I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”
The little bunny is strong and independent; but his idea of freedom is actually captivity. Little bunnies don’t make good swimmers. We’re kind of like that little bunny, aren’t we? We run to things that we think will make us happy but they don’t. That’s how it’s been since Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate from “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:17). They wanted freedom but instead they got captivity. Their sin introduced brokenness and mistrust into our world. So what did they do in the garden? They ran away. They tried to hide.
Genesis 3:8 (NIV) Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
Do you know what it’s like to be so wrong you just want to hide? Hi an emotion, hide a memory, hide a thing you did or said? Hide from your parents, your spouse, your friends, your boss, your God? One of my earliest memories is me running away and hiding from my brothers because I had done something wrong (I think I’d lied). We all hide because we all feel shame, but God doesn’t want to leave us in our shame. When Adam and Eve were hiding, do you know what God was doing? He was searching.
Genesis 3:9 (NIV) But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
God knew exactly where they were as he walked through his garden, but still he called out, “Where are you?” Why would he do that? Why not just appear exactly where they were hiding and surprise them?! Because our God is a God who cares enough to come after us (Rom 3:11). Our God is a God who loves us enough to find us. Even now, God is offering Adam and Eve an opportunity to come to him, but instead they hide. But you don’t have to hide.
Where are you Adam? Where are you Eve? How would you answer that question? Where are you? Are you walking with God in the garden or are you hiding behind the trees? What do you hide behind? Do you hide behind good deeds? Good parenting? Good grades? Good fitness? A good relationship? Good work? A good career? Good morality? Being a good person? Hiding behind something that is good is still hiding. What thing is in-between you and God? Don’t let it keep you back from him.
The runaway bunny has good ideas; he has really great ideas. He doesn’t want to do bad. He wants to do good. He wants to become a mountain!
“If you become a fisherman,” said the little bunny, “I will become a rock on the mountain, high above you.”
“If you become a rock on the mountain high above me,” said his mother, “I will be a mountain climber, and I will climb to where you are.”
The little bunny wants to become a mountain high above his mother. He wants to surpass her. He wants to be in charge. That’s exactly what Adam and Eve wanted and what we want when we do life our way instead of God’s way. We want to rule over God; we want to be the ones in charge. The mommy bunny doesn’t say, “Fine, have it your way” and leave her bunny to his mountain; instead, she goes after him. And that’s the story of the Bible, God doesn’t leave us to ourselves but comes after you and me. The Psalmist David describes a God who pursues us no matter where we go.
Psalm 139:7-10 (NIV)
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
There’s nowhere we can get away from God. You can’t be so high and so good that you don’t need God. But neither can you be so bad and so low that God can’t forgive you. There’s no location, activity, memory, or action we can hide behind where God can’t rescue us.
The little bunny tries to hide in a hidden garden, a place with lots of hiding spots for a little bunny, but his mother becomes a gardener and finds him.
The little bunny tries to become a bird and fly away from his mother, but she becomes the tree he calls home.
The little bunny tries to become a sailboat and sail away from his mother, but she becomes the wind and brings him home.
The little bunny tries to run away and join a circus as a flying trapeze artist, but his mother becomes a tightrope walker and walks across the air to him.
If this book was about anyone else but this little bunny’s mother or father, it would be really creepy, but it’s not. It’s about his mother. She’s pursuing him not out of anger or wanting to take something from him, but out of love. She loves him enough to become what he needs; and we have a God who has become what we need to rescue us. I’m going to read a passage from the Bible that describes God becoming exactly who we need, a small baby boy named Jesus.
Luke 1:30-35 (NIV)
30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
What we need is for God to come to us just like he did in the garden. He needs to come and walk among us and that’s exactly what he did through Jesus. Jesus lived and breathed and experienced life just like you and me. Jesus had to wake-up on Mondays too. But the mysterious thing about Jesus is that he is also the one true God. That means through Jesus God is feeling and experiencing the things we feel and experience, except he doesn’t sin. He handles life the way it should be handled. Jesus, because he’s God, but also man, can speak to his Heavenly Father on our behalf. He can make amends for us.
He can make amends because he shed his own blood on the cross to pay for our sins. That sounds old fashioned, doesn’t it? Why would a loving God require his Son to die? Because he’s also a just God. The only way God can forgive our sins and love us is by paying the penalty for sin himself—and that’s what God did in Jesus. Jesus is the God who took our penalty upon himself so that we might live. He’s a God who wants to rescue anyone who is lost.
Jesus told a parable of a lost sheep during his ministry. He told it because people were complaining that he spent time with the wrong kind of people, the outcasts and sinners, the misfits (Luke 15:1-2). Our God loves the outcasts, sinners, and misfits.
Luke 15:3-7 (NIV)
3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home.
A shepherd loses one of his sheep and then goes far and wide to find it. That’s what God has done for us.
Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
If you’re out there doing your own thing, maybe a really great thing, but you’re running away from God, Jesus is the good shepherd who is coming after you. He is not content to let you perish apart from him. He does call you to repentance, to turn away from the sin that hurts you and believe in him, but he does so out of love.
“If you become a tightrope walker and walk across the air,” said the bunny, “I will become a little boy and run into a house.”
“If you become a little boy and run into a house,” said the mother bunny, “I will become your mother and catch you in my arms and hug you.”
Are you a runaway bunny? It takes courage to admit you’re a bunny. It takes courage to admit you got a sin problem and can’t make it right but God can through Jesus. It takes courage to stop running and and come home.
“Shucks,” said the bunny, “I might just as well stay where I am and be your little bunny.” And so he did. “Have a carrot,” said the mother bunny.
~
Pastor Jonathan Romig preached this message at Cornerstone Congregational Church. You can download a PDF copy of this sermon above, which includes endnotes and references or share it through Apple podcasts. Read the story of our church here.
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