Father

I was a guest speaker in a church and was asked to speak about “The Lord’s Prayer.” In an effort to show how shocking Jesus’s opening remarks were I said, “He started His prayer by saying “Daddy” I lost the audience and never got them back. The next day the pastor was bombarded with calls telling him to never let me speak there again because I had blasphemed the name of God by calling Him daddy.

Their shock was nothing compared to what those gathered on the hillside when Jesus first spoke the prayer. Historically the Jews had so isolated God until they could not even call His name. God told Moses to say “I AM” knowing they would have stoned Moses if he dared use God’s real name. God was so aloof in their minds that only a priest could be in His presence and then only once per year. Perhaps the priests sort of sold that idea, after all if everyone had access there was not much job security for priests.

Jesus started His model prayer with “Our Father” and that one word may have started the movement against Him that ultimately lead to a crucifixion. He not only dared to call God by name, He called Him father. “How crude, who does He think He is? Someone must deal with Him.”

The name is no longer shocking of course. We have heard it over and over until it passes without notice and we miss what a magnificent and meaningful statement is wrapped up in that tittle. God is like a father to us. That is a thrilling thought to most of us. Of course, it is less thrilling to some. Some people were raised in a world of guilt and fear so just calling Him Father is not enough to give them peace. Others were raised by abusive and cruel fathers, so the word is not one that gives warm responses. Others had cold and distant fathers who never really bothered to relate to them so maybe God is also cold and distant. But I have good news.

In this case the father is like the son. Jesus said, “If you have seen me you have seen the father.” John’s gospel says, “In Him (Jesus) dwelt all of the God Head bodily.”

That means He is the kind of father that would sit on the lip of a well and talk with a woman so shamed she had to come to get water when no one was around and yet He loved and accepted her.

He is the kind of father that forced a mob to drop the rocks they were going to use on a woman caught in the act of adultery.

He is the kind of father that called a tax man out of a tree and went home with him for lunch, who stopped to heal a woman who wanted to just touch his clothes. Who nicknamed Peter “Rocky” after he had denied that he even knew Him and did not change his mind about Thomas who was full of doubt.

The kind of father who even forgave the men who nailed Him to a cross and did so while they were shooting craps for his clothes.

The kind of father who simply walked His world waiting to be interrupted by anyone and everyone and never said no.

He is the kind of father that will adopt every rag tag orphan He can possibly reach including someone like me.

That is worth lying in bed in the morning contemplating just how accepted, loved and guilt free I am because I have that kind of “Daddy.”