"Our Divine Daddy"

A sermon preached on The Third Sunday after Pentecost/Father's Day, June 17, 2007 at Edgemont Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), by the Rev. Christopher E. Yopp. Sermon based on Romans 8:12-17.

Dan Jarrell tells the story of when a man approached him one day after a speaking engagement and handed him a letter. The letter told of this man’s lifelong desire to hear his father say, "I love you." You see, this man’s father had died in World War II when his son was only three years old. His mother had often assured him of his father’s love as he was growing up, but that didn’t quite fill the void that his father’s absence left. One day, this man was helping his mother move and she gave him an old Army picture of his father. The picture suddenly slipped from his hands and the frame and glass shattered all over the floor. As he knelt down to pick up the broken pieces of glass and frame, he noticed a piece of paper had been wedged behind the photo that was now visible. It was a letter from his father. His father, knowing that he might die in the war and not have the chance to ever see his son, wrote him a letter and hid it behind the picture of himself in his uniform. In the letter, the father shared his love for his son. Thirty-seven years later this young man finally found what he had spent so many years searching for – he found his father’s love and was made better by that love.
Those of you who are a part of my Sunday school class know that occasionally I like to use some theological terms in my teaching. And one such term is anthropomorphic, which is the theological term that seeks to describe God using human qualities and characteristics, traits and even gender.
The fact is, God is God - God is neither male nor female, but over and beyond those - God is Spirit. However, both man and woman are in God’s image. Now, while it is true that the Bible does, when addressing God in prayer, use the image of Father. But in images used in talking about God, the Bible always addresses God in the feminine - as a mother and rightfully so.
In fact, the greatest anthropomorphic picture of God is God is a parent - a loving mother and a caring father - an image that is used time and time again in Scripture.
I find it interesting when focusing on God, to see how God was perceived in the Old and New Testaments, and while those perceptions may differ, they are not contradicting as some might argue. It is interesting that while the picture we get of God in the Old Testament almost drastically changes by the time we come to the New Testament, we are told in Scripture that God never changes – God’s nature is eternal, and God is the same "yesterday, today and forever." The difference is in the way in which God is perceived or viewed and not in the nature or character of God. The Old Testament saints had a tendency to conceive God’s nature almost solely in the natural sphere - they saw God solely as Creator. And while this more distant view of God appears to be predominate in the Old Testament, it does change from time to time. In fact, the Psalmist offers us a picture of a much more personal and intimate God. And then, of course, in the New Testament, God becomes more real and personal and intimate to us, because now we have a God with flesh - a tangible God in the person of Jesus Christ. And Jesus gives us an understanding of God that far surpasses anything we can imagine or comprehend. He gives the word "Father" a whole new meaning – he gave it new depth, and content and understanding. In fact, Jesus is for us, like that letter was to that young man who desperately wanted to know of his father’s love. Jesus reveals to us that God our divine Father is love and that God loves us unconditionally.
Sometimes it takes us quite a while to learn that fact, to learn that God is a God of love and mercy, a God of compassion and grace. The Israelites, after many generations, finally discovered that God was not a God of wrath, as they had believed, but a God of love. It took Christ to teach the world that God is like our fathers in the finest sense the word can have. God is the supreme example of fatherhood.
Father’s Day is celebrated a little differently in the church, than in the world. In the church all men are fathers and are called to be those who nurture and support, love and tend to the needs of not only their own family, but also the family of God. It is an awesome privilege and responsibility – one, which models God’s attributes and characteristics.
Some months ago I heard a touching story about a Pastor whose young son had become very ill. After the boy had undergone an exhaustive series of tests, the father was told the shocking news that his son had a terminal illness. The pastor and father wondered how he was going to tell his young son that he soon would die. After wrestling with this for some time and after spending much time of prayer, he went with a heavy heart to his son’s bedside and he gently told him that the doctors could only promise him a few more days to live. "Are you afraid to meet God?" asked his devout father. Blinking away a few tears, the little boy said bravely, "No daddy, not if he’s like you!"
Years ago a newspaper reporter went to interview the great concert artist Roland Hayes. The reporter found him at lunch, not in the eloquent hotel dining room, but in a dingy, little room next to the kitchen – and this, simply because of the color of his skin. The reporter was offended, but Hayes stopped him by saying, "This doesn’t bother me." The reporter said, "How can this not bother you. You are an accomplished artist and here they treat you like this, like you’re ‘a nobody.’" Hayes went on to say; "Before I went away to school to struggle hard for the training I have, my father had a talk with me. He didn’t say much, but he impressed one thing upon me. ‘Roland,’ he said, ‘remember who you are’". He said, "My father kept drumming that into me until I finally asked; ‘Who am I, Dad?’" He replied, "Roland, you are a child of God.!"
"Remember who you are!" My friends, you are child of God – we are children of God. Thomas Wolfe’s poem, "What Are We?" follows strange and winding paths through several stanzas, but his poem ends right on target. I will never forget the first time I read those words; "We are the sons of our father, and we shall follow the print of his foot forever." Certainly, as Christians this is what we must do – follow the footprint of our divine Father.
In our Scripture Lesson this morning, Paul reminds us who we are - we are children of God. The Greek word that Paul uses to speak of our adoption as children of God is huiothesia, which is a reminder that God brought us back into the family of God. Where once we were outside the family because of sin, God has adopted us back into his family and we are now his children. It is quite clear from Paul’s use of the words, "sons," "children," "heirs," "joint heirs," and "Abba, Father" that he is thinking of the life of the believer in terms of the divine family relationship - a relationship that is made possible through Christ and the Spirit of God.
Miriam calls me by many names, oftentimes they reflect her mood or even what she is asking for. But none of these names are more affectionate and meaningful than when she calls me "daddy."
Interestingly enough very few words in the Bible have survived the passage of time and the tender attention of translation and remain today in our language in their original form. For example, the Hebrew word amen, the Greek word anathema, and the Aramaic word maranatha are all found in close proximity in I Corinthians chapter 16. The word Abba is another of these words. It has its roots in the Hebrew ab, meaning father and developed into the Aramaic abba, an affectionate expression that is best translated in modern English as "daddy." Such an expression to God would be unheard up to the strict Jews of Jesus time and of the Old Testament - calling the Holy of Holies, the Creator of the Cosmos - abba, "daddy" - that is appalling! But such is the way Christ taught us to address God our divine Daddy!
In God we see the true meaning of father, and all the wonderful qualities and characteristics that a father possesses. And the Apostle Paul gives us a wonderful picture of this Divine Father or Daddy-child relationship.
Our own families and even our church family is just an expression of the greatest family of all - our divine family. Our parents - our mothers and fathers are only an expression of God our divine parent.
In his book, Disappointment with God, author Philip Yancey relates a touching story from his own life. Once, while visiting with his mother, who had been widowed years earlier, they spent the afternoon together looking through a box of old photos. A certain picture of Philip as an eight-month-old baby caught his eye. The picture was worn, bent and torn, so he asked his mother why, with so many other better pictures of him at the same age, she had kept this one. Yancey writes, "My mother explained to me that the photo was very sentimental, because during my father’s illness it had been clipped to his bed rail." During the last four months of his life, Yancey’s father was totally confined to the bed, he was completely paralyzed by polio at the age of twenty-four. With his two young sons banned from the hospital due to the severity of his illness, he had asked his wife for pictures of his two boys. The last four months of his life were spent looking at the faces he beloved children. Philip Yancey writes, "I have often thought of that old worn photo, for it is one of the few links connecting me to my father whom I never had the opportunity to see. And yet, this person I have no memory of, no sensory knowledge of, spent all day, every day thinking of me, devoting himself to me, loving me." Philip went on to say; "The emotions I felt when my mother showed me that old photo were the very same emotions I felt that February night in a college dorm room when I first believed in a God of love. Someone is there, I realized. Someone is there who loves me," and that someone is our Divine Daddy! May we experience our Divine Daddy’s love anew and afresh on this Father’s Day and may we be made better by that love!