Good News of Great Joy

Everlasting Father

Deuteronomy 32:6; Isaiah 64:8; Acts 17:24-28

The third name the prophet Isaiah gives for the coming Messiah is the most ironic, especially for us as followers of Jesus Christ. Everlasting Father seems paradoxical to the extreme because it mixes together parent and child—how can a person be both parent and child simultaneously? How can Jesus be Son of God while being God Almighty, too? It is such questions that vexed even the earliest Christian theologians, leading to the great credal conference in Nicaea that gave us the Nicene Creed. Great minds of the Church like Aquinas, Anselm, and on to Calvin, the Westminster conference (that gave us the great Westminster Confession and the wondrous catechisms many of us remember learning in Confirmation Class), and even to the extraordinary work of Karl Barth. They all puzzled over this mystery of God, a God who can be in two places at once, who can be two persons at once (and, of course, actually three as Trinity). So, there is obvious reason for us to be confused, and, truth be told, most of us opt out of the discussion, just taking it as so, and moving on. 

I invite us to turn around and look again.

As we draw ever nearer to the manger in Bethlehem, a long time of contemplation and meditation on what it is we are witnessing will greatly compound the meaning, hope, and good news of this event.

Let me explain.

It all revolves around another title Isaiah gave to the Messiah—Immanuel—God with us. The great core of our faith is that God is actually, tangibly present with us in our earthly existence. God is not so wholly (holy) other that God has no place in our material lives. God is not so removed from us that God cannot truly empathize or sympathize us as we deal with the daily suffering of being human. In fact, we confess that God can be moved deeply by our plight, stress, and struggle to be whom God made us to be. We believe God knows us fully and completely. We believe God understands every aspect of our being from the glorious highs to the monumental lows. We believe God walks with us into whatever awaits us. We can confess these affirmations because Christ is God with us—Christ is God as a real, tangible human being, yet miraculously also fully God in the totality of God’s transcendent and transformative power. We believe, then, that God with us means that there is nothing in all creation that has the power to ultimately separate us from God, not even death (cf. Rom. 8:32ff.). St. Paul will declare us to be, “More than conquerors,” because of the miraculous twining of God and us in Christ. 

But it all begins with a baby born in a forgotten corner of Bethlehem, away from the mob filling the town at the Caesar’s command. As Mary brings forth her first child, the simple miracle of existence is affirmed. It takes a lot to be born viable, even in a time of medical miracles such as our own. So, Jesus arrives safely with ten fingers and ten toes. Then Jesus thrives. There may be no more important Gospel texts than the few paragraphs that conclude Luke 2; yet, these are so often overlooked, skipped to get to the “good parts” of the story. Thirty years passes in a twinkling, but what Luke proclaims is that Jesus survived his rearing. Again, we take such a thought for granted, yet most of us know the fragility of being young. I lost my first friend when I was 16—I know some of you experienced that first taste of loss even younger. We hear of kids in trouble all the time. We see tragic consequences unfold every school year. Matthew tells us this story in his Nativity with its mad king and insufferable darkness that forces the Holy Family to flee for their lives. Boy Jesus survived the mortal danger of existence in the world because Father God kept him. Besides the literal dangers, there are the other hurdles to overcome, including the very families that birth us. This statement is not at all a disparagement of family—far from it—but rather an acknowledgement that we do the best we can with what we have and that mistakes will be made, scars inflicted, and wounds cut in even the best of families. Even though Jesus was without sin, I still imagine struggles between parent and child—Luke even hints at it—Jesus disappeared in the Temple, was lost to his parents, and, yes, they felt that deep pit of fear in their deepest gut, sure he was gone. You know they had to feel that unbelievable experience of wanting to kill a child as you hug them in absolute joy at finding them. Jesus made it through all of that to become the wandering rabbi who was Messiah. 

It is this journey that begins in Bethlehem that actually lays the foundation for all the miracles, teaching, and glory of the ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ. It is what inextricably weaves God and us together in pure, holy communion. God shares every breath of our existence with us. There is no moment that God does not know. 

And it is here that we fully understand the monumental love that makes God Abba, Father. 

What parent would not love to have the power God has with and among all God’s children? What parent would not want to intervene so deeply into their children’s lives so as to redeem every mistake, heal every hurt, and overcome every burden they face?

God does that and more for all of us.

That is the whole reason behind Christ—God so deeply loved us that God could no longer tolerate our inability to live by the parameters and within the confines of God’s gracious love and its rule for life. God struggled with God’s people’s struggle. So God intervened in ultimate fashion. God interceded for all the world. God met every person with full acknowledgement, affirmation, and assurance that all could be well and all manner of things could be well. As John proclaims, “God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son so that whoever believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life.”

God is both Son and Everlasting Father.

That is the glorious good news of Christmas. It begins again. It begins again for each of us. It is our good news because God is our Everlasting Father. 

Turn to him. Run to him. He awaits us all. He awaits with arms wide open to welcome us.