One can become fatherless by illness, crime, divorce, or plain old simple abandonment. Unfortunately, it happens every day, at any age. Each is painful. Fathers are not everlasting.
I lost my father during college to cancer. As I faced the future without him, I wondered how I would steer through life’s transitions — college, graduation, finding a job, and getting married someday.
By God’s grace, I did, but not by cleverness or determination. A car accident and a threat of suspension from school months after he died taught me one thing. I couldn’t manage on my own. I still needed a father.
Jesus — An Everlasting Father?
Isaiah 9:6 says, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Each Christmas, my eyes skimmed the familiar titles for Jesus. But one time, Everlasting Father leaped off the page like the odd man out. Why did Isaiah call the future Messiah, Everlasting Father? Jesus isn’t God the Father of the Trinity. He’s the Son. Was Isaiah mistaken?
Jesus Knows Our Pain
Sorrow visited Jesus just as unexpectedly as it does for us. Isaiah 53:3 says: “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.”
Despised and Rejected by Mankind — Jesus started life on the run. A politically threatened Sovereign sought to kill the infant king when wise men arrived asking about a royal birth. As an adult, this backwater Galilean taught Scriptures with such authority it upset the religious order and the privileged position of its leaders.
Jesus made enemies.
The people who once fawned over him for healing their sick and filling their stomachs, shouted, “Crucify him” when he failed their political expectations. Even his own brothers and sisters thought he was crazy.
A Man of Suffering — Jesus gave up the comforts of Heaven for a human body bounded by the need for food, water, air, and sleep. Hunger gnawed at his stomach when he fasted for 40 days. Temptation played games with his human nature. Then there was the crush of desperate people seeking his attention until he crashed on a mat at the bottom of a boat during a storm.
It didn’t get any better toward the climax of his mission. The Judean sky darkened; our sin hugged his naked, bleeding body that hung on a cross. Then, the Heavenly Father turned his back on him. Jesus cried out, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” Think of a jilted partner’s feelings when a spouse walks away for good and multiply it 1,000 fold.
Familiar with Pain — Pain isn’t always physical. Emotions can hurt even more. Jesus lost not one, but two fathers? He lost face-to-face fellowship with Father God when he took on the physical and mental limitations of a baby to save a human race that didn’t think it needed saving.
Remember the first time you left home? Maybe you sat in an empty college dorm room or landed in the big city for your first job. You didn’t know anyone around you. How did you feel?
He also lost Joseph. Joseph wasn’t his biological father, but he protected and guided Jesus throughout his early life. Joseph taught Jesus a trade and probably instilled life lessons while working side by side in the carpenter’s shop. Time spent together can yield deeper ties than shared DNA guarantees.
When Jesus took on flesh and blood, he had cells layered upon cells, with embedded sensory receptors that connected not only with the brain but mysteriously with the soul. If he wept for his dead friend, Lazarus, surely he wept at Jospeh’s grave.
Jesus felt what we feel.
Jesus, a Father Figure at Home
What the Bible doesn’t tell us about Jesus’ younger days, culture gives us clues. Jesus took on family responsibilities as the eldest, when the head spot at the supper table remained vacant. It was Jesus whom Mary looked to solve the wine-less wedding scandal in Cana. And from the cross, he assumed his responsibility, by entrusting his widowed mother, Mary, to a disciple’s care.
Jesus — The Good Shepherd
In John’s gospel, Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd. Good shepherds guide their flock to grass and water to sustain them. They rescues strays and lead the flock to the safety of the pen at night.
Isn’t that what a good father does? He provides for his family’s food and shelter; he advises and warns his offspring of danger if they follow a certain path. Ultimately, good shepherds lay down their lives for their sheep. Jesus did all of that and still provides, guides, and chides us today.
Everlasting Father
If this Christmas rakes the embers of loss for you, remember that you have an Everlasting Father in Jesus. He still seeks, listens, empathizes, and understand us. He will never leave nor forsake us.
Death couldn’t steal him. Jealous officials couldn’t silence him. Divorce isn’t in his vocabulary. And abandonment is totally out of the question after hanging on a cross for our sins.
By nature, earthly fathers may fail or disappoint us. But failure to father isn’t in Jesus’ nature.
That’s why Isaiah calls him Everlasting Father. That’s the good news the angels sang about in the hill country surrounding Bethlehem once upon a midnight clear.
© 2020 David Harlen Brooks | All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Photo by Josh Willink from Pexels
