"For you are our father,
though Abraham does not know us
and Israel does not acknowledge us;
you, O Lord, are our father;
our Redeemer from of old is your name."
- Isaiah 63:16
Some scholars say that when Jesus taught his disciples to begin their prayers with, "Our Father", he was referencing this verse in Isaiah. In Isaiah's, Jesus', and also our contexts, referencing God as our Father is a revolutionary idea, though numerous repetitions of the Lord's Prayer may dull this fact. Humans think of their gods as many things, but rarely, I would argue, do we truly see our God as Father.
For the downtrodden Israelites Isaiah was speaking to, Abraham was who they usually thought of as their Father. He was, after all, the one whose DNA they all shared, the one whose faith in God led to his descendents being as numerous as the stars in the sky (Genesis 15:5). Yet, to these suffering people, the promises God made to Abraham so long ago seemed totally foreign. What did the size of their population matter when their people were scattered by other more powerful nations? What did the promised land mean when their homes and cities had been leveled by foreign conquerors? Their connection to Abraham seemed to them a matter of biology only.
This, I think, is a powerful image. For most, if not all civilizations, family is the most basic unit. It is in families that we are raised and protected. It is our families that we associate most strongly with the idea of home. Yet there come times when we, for whatever reason, experience isolation or even disownment from our families, times when even our own fathers turn their backs on us.
But here Isaiah forshadows God's one and only Son by telling his people that, even though Abraham had forgetten them, God would not. Though Abraham, buried for hundreds of years by Isaiah's time, could not come out of the grave to help his children, there would come a day when God's Son would roll away the stone of his own tomb, and save his people. Though Abraham had failed them as father, God never fails.
On this planet, there is no such thing as a perfect father. They forget, they leave, they fail. But that ache that people feel when their fathers disappoint them points towards something: the fact that there is something greater out there, Someone who will not only never disappoint them, but will exceed all the expectations and longings for relationship that children are born with.
When other fathers turn their backs on their children, our Father God does the opposite: coming down to earth to die for his children, to redeem them from sin and death, to open the door to a relationship with us.
Now I've got to ask: are you in this relationship?
3 comments:
this idea really is revolutionary,
i think that the intensity of this relationship is questionable only because there are so many diverse facades to be taken account for.
and how does one go about trying to picture the perfect father son relationship?
can we really know something to this extent?
if its a divine idea, do we have the capacity?
Hey PB,
2 things I'm chewing on here...
1. Abraham was dead at this point, right? If not, disregard the rest of this point and sign me up for more Bible study. :-B. If so, did Abraham "fail" his children per se, or is the idea of failure here more directed towards the Israelites' expectation of who they were looking to as their "father"? After all, I'm not sure what Abraham could've done for his descendants given that, I mean he was dead & buried at that point... Somehow doesn't seem fair to hang an EPIC FAIL on him when he's long gone...No?
2. Am I in this relationship? I think so? I know I talk to Him. To be 100% honest, I do wonder sometimes if I'm paying attention to the right things when He might be trying to tell me something. Also sometimes, if I'm hearing what I want to hear or cherry-picking what I like to hear from the Bible, from you, etc and not listening to the entire message, even the less-comfortable/fun/digestable parts...
hey guys, thanks for the comments. some replies...
@jonathan - I don't think it's possible to fully comprehend the perfect father/child relationship, at least in this lifetime, but I think we sometimes hear echoes of it. And it's these echoes that confirm what's depicted in the Bible with regards to God the Father (all-loving, all-powerful, completely just).
@OJ - Yes, Abraham was dead at this point. I still think it would be great for us to dig into the bible together though! :)
1. I would still hang the "F" on him, though, even though there wasn't much he could do about not being there. That's the thing about life: we have expectations or even responsibilities that exceed what we're capable of. In Abraham, the Israelites had a shadow of who their true father was, but he could never be the father that they were looking for (because he was only human). In God, they had their true father, who, in fact, would later show them that he was both fully God and fully human (in Jesus Christ).
2. Thank you for commenting honestly on this one. I think you are too, though it's ultimately something that's between you and God. One thing's for sure: whether we're good listeners or bad, our relationship with God is secured not through our efforts, but through Christ's. Even if you are cherry-picking (which is something I can be guilty of as well), our relationship with God rests on this "He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?" Romans 8.
Of course, cherry-picking makes it extremely hard to really grow as a follower of Christ. In fact, it can cause some serious damage both to the believer and to the people around him. But the quality and quantity of God's love for us does not change. He has already made his choice, and it is for us.
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