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. 

Names for The Messiah: Wonderful Counselor

Luke 2:39-52   (NRSV)

When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.

Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.

While today is not the first Sunday in the season of Advent, Matt and I are beginning our look at some of the names given to Jesus the Messiah by the early Christian community.

The names that we are going to focus on are the ones found in the prophet Isaiah's text that the early church came to understand as referring to Jesus.

But those are not the only names that were ascribed to Jesus.

Throughout the Gospels titles are given to Jesus to help the early followers (and us as well) to understand just who Jesus was and is.

The author of Matthew composed the gospel with a Jewish audience in mind, so he goes to great lengths to "prove" who Jesus is by linking him up to the Hebrew Bible.

If you have never read Matthew carefully you may want to take another look.

It is written in five sections --- Just like the Torah of the Hebrew Bible

and the purpose of the book is to demonstrate that Jesus is the NEW lawgiver --- where the Torah showed Moses as the lawgiver.

In Matthew's birth story just like Moses, Jesus has to be hidden because the Empire wants to kill him   

                   Pharaoh slaughters all the children

                   Herod does the same

          Jesus must go to Egypt so that he can return (like Israel did in Hebrew Bible)

Matthew goes to great lengths to prove to his readers that Jesus is the Messiah that was predicted in the Jewish scriptures --- what we often call the Old Testament

Luke, in his birth stories, is not as interested in demonstrating that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah --- but rather that Jesus is the Messiah that has been anticipated since the beginning of time.

Again --- a quick look both Matthew and Luke illustrate this

Mathew's genealogy wants to prove that Jesus is of the lineage of David --- thus it goes back to Abraham (the father of the Jews) and includes King David.

But where does Luke's genealogy take us back to?

          Luke want to show that Jesus is a son of Adam

Luke's Jesus is not just the Jewish Messiah --- Jesus is the Messiah for all.

But both are influenced by the oracle that is found in Isaiah chapter 9 that will be the focal point for our preaching this advent season.

Isaiah writes

The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
    on them light has shined.
. . .

For a child has been born for us,
    a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
    and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His authority shall grow continually,
    and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
    He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
    from this time onward and forevermore.

These words are familiar because we read them each and every Advent Season, but more than that we know these words from George Frideric Handel's famous MESSIAH.

In the summer of 1741, George Frideric Handel was a 56-year old composer and suffering from poor health following a stroke and in considerable financial difficulty, he was at the low point of his musical career.

Charles Jennens had sent a copy of his libretto to Handel and twenty-four days later, George Frideric Handel had finished the Messiah, the most famous oratorio ever written.

We all know the majesty and triumph of The Hallelujah Chorus that concludes this masterwork.

It is in the twelfth song of the first movement that Handel captures the exuberant, joy of Isaiah 9:2-7. 

Titled "for unto us a child is born" Handel lays out for us our four titles for Jesus.

While the early church came to understand that Isaiah was predicting the future Messiah --- Jesus --- it is clear that the author did not intend it that way.

Isaiah, in the 8th century (BCE), was writing most likely to celebrate the birth of a new royal prince in Jerusalem --- or the coronation of a new king.

Isaiah was filled with hope that this new king would usher in a new age --- an age filled with peace and prosperity.

The people had been living in a difficult time --- they were as Isaiah wrote --- a people who lived in deep darkness.

But with this new king --- light would shine upon them.

And he gives this new king four rather lofty titles

          Wonderful Counselor

          Mighty God

          Everlasting Father

          Prince of Peace

We will look at each of these titles and how they have shaped how we understand Jesus and our expectations for him

WONDERFUL COUNSELOR

Handel misunderstood the Hebrew and he put a comma between wonderful and counselor thus creating two titles.

But in the Hebrew it is meant as one

This new king will be a Wonderful Counselor

          A counselor of great wonders

This word counselor refers to governance or the ability to execute policy

Isaiah is rejoicing that God has raised up a new king who will initiate policies and practices that will dazzle in effectiveness and benefit the entire kingdom.

This morning is Christ the King Sunday --- a relatively new addition to our liturgical calendar.  This is the last Sunday of the ecclesiastical year --- Advent begins a new cycle.

We celebrate Christ the King to remind us that Jesus is the king of our lives and the universe

It seems very appropriate that we begin this series today since all these titles given by Isaiah are filled with royal imagery.

Just as Isaiah wrote during a time of distress for the Jewish people --- the Assyrian Empire was growing stronger and stronger

Jesus entered the world that was controlled by the Roman Empire and their oppressive practices

Luke clearly identifies this issue in the opening of his Gospel:

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered.

Walter Brueggemann in his book "Names for the Messiah" writes:

The larger drama of the Gospel exhibits the way in which King Jesus takes issue with the royal power of Rome and subsequently with every regime of power that imagines it is ultimate and absolute.  The power of King Jesus is intrinsically revolutionary and subversive against every repressive regime.

So in Isaiah, the early church got a glimpse of what this promised king should look like and how he would oppose the evil empirical power of Rome.

The early church believed that Jesus will bring about a new regime of peace and well-being that will displace the Roman order of violence and extortion.

The saw in King Jesus the manifestation of these four royal titles that the oracle of Isaiah had announced.

          Wonderful Counselor

          Mighty God

          Everlasting Father

          Prince of Peace

Jesus, as a wonderful counselor, will bring about extraordinary plans and policies.

          And he will do this by re-ordering the life of the Jewish people

Brueggemann suggest that the early church saw five things in Jesus that helped them identify him as the Wonderful Counselor of Isaiah chapter 9

Jesus was wise.

Throughout the Gospels people are asking where Jesus gets his wisdom from.

He is proclaimed for his wisdom as a child

          The familiar story of the visit to the temple

As well as an adult

Roman power was seen as foolishness but the authority and the path of Jesus was seen as wise and extraordinary

Jesus was extraordinary

Jesus displayed an authority that was unlike anyone else's

Mark 1:22    (NRSV)

They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

His teaching was presenting a totally different world-view --- a new way to look at the world.

Jesus' teaching and actions were full of wisdom

His healings demonstrated his wisdom and power

Jesus, when John the Baptist's disciples come to ask on behalf of John, Jesus says to them:

“Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.

What Jesus was doing was never seen before and could not be explained

Jesus challenged the empire

All that Jesus was doing was a huge threat to the Empire.

          He was seen as dangerous and subversive

If you are not sure about this go and read the beatitudes found in Matthew's Gospel.

Jesus turns the world upside down and offers a whole new paradigm

Jesus is not killed because he was a nice guy who went around healing people --- he was executed because he was threatening a revolution.

Mary anticipated this when in her song she proclaimed:

Luke 1:51-53    (NRSV)

He has shown strength with his arm;

    he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

    and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

    and sent the rich away empty.

But maybe the most important thing this Wonderful Counselor did was: Jesus invited us to join him on his mission

Before Jesus is executed by Rome, this wise, transformative King invited his followers to continue his way of subversive astonishment and transformation of the world.

And we are invited to do the same.

We have been called to a new vocation.

We are invited to be a part of this new Kingdom --- one that wants to turn the world upside down.

The words of Isaiah held out hope for his generation.

          And hope for ours.

God was not abandoning Israel to invasion and disaster, but was promising that in spite of the prospect of war there was a glorious future ahead.

Jesus also entered into a difficult and dark world.

But like this promised King from Isaiah, Jesus offers a new path.

The question remains --- are we willing to follow the wonderful counsel of King Jesus?

Are we willing to challenge the status quo and seek God's kingdom rather than our own?

If we are to do that --- we must take up the light of Jesus and use it to dispel the darkness that surrounds us

May Jesus be the Wonderful Counselor for your life --- and may you have the courage to follow the plan and counsel that he gives to you.  Amen.