Names For The Messiah: Everlasting Father

During this season of Advent --- this season of expectation and preparation we are looking at the four names that the oracle in Isaiah 9 gives describing a future king.  This king that Isaiah was referring to was most likely Hezekiah, but the early church, familiar with this oracle saw in it reflected their expectations for the Messiah Jesus.

They adapted these four names: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace; to their expectations for Jesus.  Most of these names easily fit with what we have come to believe about Jesus.

·         Wonderful Counselor

Jesus is a new type of King that will bring wonderful, compassionate governance to all parts of God's Kingdom

·         Mighty God

We all recognize the power of Jesus.

Power to perform miracles

Power to stand up to the Empire

·         Prince of Peace

This is the easiest one and Matt will tackle this on the morning of the 24th.

But then there is Everlasting Father. 

How can Jesus be seen as the Everlasting Father?

For me there are a lot of difficult problems with this one. 

And I will just share with you a few.

First, the doctrine of the Trinity would seem to suggest that claiming Jesus as Father might be seen as a heresy.

                   God is Father

                   Jesus is Son

                   Jesus is NOT the Father

There is no doubt, but the early church struggled with this title as well, but eventually they were able to come up with a way that they could see Jesus as the Everlasting Father without calling into question the doctrine we have come to articulate as the Trinity

Second issue is one more specific to our time. 

There are many people who struggle with the idea as God as Father at all.  Their experiences of earthy fathers make the connotation of God as father problematic.

          They grew up with NO father

Or a father that was terrible and mean

They may have been abused by a male power figure

Before you pooh pooh this --- and tell those that struggle with it to grow up . . .

We need to be careful that we don't continue using a metaphor for God to drive someone away.  We all know that God is not LITERALLY our father.  It is just a way to explain or express who God is.  God is as much our mother as God is our father.  So please, before you judge someone be careful. Because when that happens --- we all loose

We don’t want to be responsible for driving someone away from God all because we are stuck with a metaphor for God

So let's take a moment and look at how the early church came to understand Jesus as Everlasting Father.

When Isaiah wrote this oracle in the 8th century BCE, Israel was an extremely patriarchal society.

The father was the head of the tribe, clan or family

The father had the most power and responsibility

The father was the protector and guarantor of life

So it is not surprising that they would understand God in those same terms.

God as Father was seen by the Israelites as creator of all

We adopted that same understanding when we created the Apostles Creed in which we proclaim that: "We believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth."

The Psalmist writes: (Psalm 24:1)

The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,
    the world, and those who live in it;

God created it all.

God was also seen as a potter --- one who would mold and shape Israel

(Isaiah 64:8)

O Lord, you are our Father;

    we are the clay, and you are our potter;

    we are all the work of your hand.

In Psalm 68, God is praised because God protects the most vulnerable in society: orphans and widows. (Psalm 68:5-6)

Father of orphans and protector of widows
    is God in his holy habitation.
God gives the desolate a home to live in;
    he leads out the prisoners to prosperity,

Brueggemann writes:

the father God is attentive to the vulnerable and unproductive a theological claim that is reflected in the Torah provision for windows, orphans, and immigrants.  Ancient Israel is to care for and protect precisely those God is attentive to.

The responsibilities that Israel believed fell to God was seen to be carried out on earth by God's chosen kings

Even the Psalmist proclaimed that the earthly, God chosen king was charged with the duty of justice to the poor and needy. 

Since God was responsible for the protection of the whole family --- the king was seen to have that responsibility as well.

Thus Isaiah's call for the new king that was to be born to be the Everlasting Father, the king who would restore justice and guarantee the wellbeing of the whole nation.

When the kings failed to live up to this responsibility --- everyone suffered.

And because the kings had failed throughout Israel’s history --- the early Christians saw in Jesus the one who could redeem the nation and once again be the protector of God’s people.

Jesus was the one who would once again provide life for all people.

And in chapter 14 of John's Gospel (one of the most beautiful sections in this Gospel) Jesus is addressing the disciples

Jesus is preparing them because soon he is to be arrested and ultimately murdered.

And in the midst of that, Jesus makes this promise. (John 14:1-4,18)

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.”

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you."

The early church felt like they lived in an orphaned world when Jesus was killed and taken from them.  But Jesus promised that he will never abandoned them, and that he will take up God's mantle of caring for all orphans.

Jesus was seen in the role of:

          family making

          family protecting

          family generating

And the early church recognized that this role, this responsibility was not temporary, like the kings of old --- but rather that Jesus would be our "father" forever, our Everlasting Father.

The end of Matthew's gospel certainly affirms this idea, when Jesus commands us: (Matthew 28:19-20)

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

Brueggemann concludes this chapter with these words:

Jesus is in such close identity with the Father that he shares these functions.  His love commandment is to enact the solidarity of Father, Son, and community.  The "everlasting" part of it is that the church, over generations, has found the abiding presence of this fatherly God to be grounds for joy, for assurance, and for missional energy.

In other words --- Jesus promises to be with us --- but the responsibility that had been given to the kings, and taken by Jesus --- that responsibility is now ours.

It is not up to big government

          or small government

It is up to you and me to live our lives in such a way that all know that they are loved by God and that justice (God's justice) is what shapes our lives.

Mary Ann Bird was a weekly columnist for The Foxboro Reporter, writing “A Bird’s Eye View”, which was a human interest story about family, town’s people and events.  At some point she wrote a piece called "The Whisper Test".

Mary Ann was born with a cleft palate before the time when reparative surgery was easily available. She was also deaf in one ear. In school, her classmates teased her without mercy. She couldn’t blow up a balloon without holding her nose or drink from a water fountain successfully.

She wrote:

“I grew up knowing I was different, and I hated it. I was born with a cleft palate, and when I started school, my classmates made it clear to me how I looked to others: a little girl with a misshapen lip, crooked nose, lopsided teeth, and garbled speech.

“Oh Mary Ann,” her classmates would say, “What happened to your lip?”

“I cut it on a piece of glass,” she would lie.

Somehow it seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different. I was convinced that no one outside my family could love me.

One of the worst experiences at school, she reported, was the day of the annual hearing test.  The teacher would call each child to her desk, and the child would cover first one ear, and then the other.  The teacher would whisper something to the child like “the sky is blue” or “you have new shoes.”  This was “the whisper test.”  If the teacher’s phrase was heard and repeated, the child passed the test.  To avoid the humiliation of failure, Mary Ann would always cheat on the test, secretly cupping her hand over her one good ear so that she could still hear what the teacher said.

One year Mary Ann was in the class of Miss Leonard, one of the most beloved teachers in the school.  Every student, including Mary Ann, wanted to be noticed by her, wanted to be her pet. 

Then came the day of the dreaded hearing test.  When her turn came, Mary Ann was called to the teacher’s desk.  As Mary Ann cupped her hand over her good ear, Miss Leonard leaned forward to whisper.  “I waited for those words,” Mary Ann wrote, “which God must have put into her mouth, those seven words which changed my life.”  Miss Leonard did not say, “The sky is blue” or “You have new shoes.”  No, Miss Leonard carefully leaned over to get as close as possible and whispered, “I wish you were my little girl.”

Those words changed Mary Ann's life.

She knew that she was loved.

This beautiful little girl, who felt rejected and orphaned by the world was loved.

These four royal titles that the early church found in the oracle of Isaiah came to help us interpret who Jesus is for us.

Wonderful Councilor

Might God

Everlasting Father

Prince of Peace

We have been invited to join King Jesus in whispering into the ear of every child; that they are loved.

Not rejected, not orphaned, not forgotten but loved with an everlasting love by an everlasting father and mother.