Our Father and Our Brother and Our Son

 Sometimes, a song lyric moves the theme for a Sunday meditation. This week is an example. I read the lectionary scriptures for this week, focusing per usual on the New Testament readings from Hebrews and Mark. The Hebrews passage references Jesus as our brother. Mark, while not explicitly referring to Jesus as father, describes him as a fatherly figure.  

This picture that to us Jesus is both father and brother recalled a lyric from Michael Card’s 1986 song, “Forgiving Eyes.” The song is musical rendition of the Woman Caught in Adultery story from John 7. The song is written from the perspective of the woman. The first verse describes the woman being caught in the act and being brought in front of an ad hoc Jewish court. Rabbi Jesus happens to be there, and he’s asked his opinion. The moment Jesus begins speaking, the woman understands that there’s hope for her. The woman cries,

My judge a man from Galilee
In His eyes so gentle I could see
A father and a brother and a son

A father, a brother, a son – that is Jesus to us, too.

How is Jesus our father?

Well, you know the title Prince of Peace? It is a title attached to Christ that comes around especially at Christmas time. That title comes from Isaiah 9:6 which reads,

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.

Jesus indeed is our Prince of Peace. But he’s also Everlasting Father! Our Everlasting Father. 

And as our father, he sees the gatekeepers trying to block our connection with him, and tells them, “Let my beloved ones come to me.” 

He says, “Come all you who are weary, all you who are burdened. I will give you rest. 

Father Christ tells us, “You who feel lost and alone, lean on me, let me gently lead the way. I am here with you in the muck and mire of life and I will wipe away your tears and lift you up to God’s light.”

“I will not leave you orphaned,” Jesus our father  tells us in John 14.

I don’t agree with Charles Spurgeon on a lot of things, but I love this quote of his: “There is no unfathering Christ, and there is no unchilding us. He is everlastingly a father to those who trust in him.” 

How can the first person of the trinity and the son both be father? Well, Jesus embodies God’s parental love and care for us here on earth. By living, breathing, and being a father to us, Christ shows us how God is Father, shows us what divine fatherhood looks like in real time. 

Jesus tenderly cares for children. Not only that. He also lifts up the act of caring for children as a measuring stick for our faithfulness to him. “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” 

Have you ever considered this. Christ as father is so close and connected to his children that if someone does something to his children, Christ sees it as something done to him. How else would a good father operate?

One more thing about Jesus as Father. Some would expect Jesus to offer us a strict, regimented, rules-heavy kind of fatherhood. That was certainly the kind of fatherhood expected in his own society. But the fatherhood style Christ offered was more free-spirited and easy-going. Jesus’ model for divine fatherhood is more Mr. Rogers than Daddy John Wayne. Let children be children, Jesus seems to say in our reading from Mark. Let them just hangout and be with me a bit if they want to. Don’t commandeer them so much, my disciples!  Nurture them, guide them, don’t dominate them. Love them into being.

Okay, let’s move on to Jesus as brother. This is easier. The end of our passage from Hebrews tells us how Jesus and those who follow him are siblings. 

Jesus, the pioneer of salvation, the one who migrated the harsh frontier of human life, who cleared a path for us, that Jesus, our brother, also clears away what separates us from real and lasting connection to our father. Jesus clears the dirty air of sin, so we can see God as God is, a loving father who waits for us to come home and be reconciled.

We might think of the Prodigal Son parable. You know the story. Well, if the anonymous author of Hebrews  were to take that story and revise it, this is what it might look like. 

A father with two sons sees one of his sons take his inheritance prematurely and run away to waste it and himself away.  His other son sees this happen and is heartbroken, too. When his prodigal brother doesn’t soon return, the son at home runs to find his wayward brother and bring him home. He sojourns a long way and takes great pains to find his brother, but he finds him. He finds his prodigal brother, shows him compassion, and brings him home to reconcile with his father. 

He became akin to a prodigal to save us his prodigal siblings. 

The father in the distance sees his sons and runs out to meet them. He embraces his wayward son and welcomes him home. Let’s celebrate, his father says. The rescuing brother mirrors his father’s words. He says, this brother of mine, let’s celebrate him! He was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” 

That’s the kind of brother Jesus is! 

 

Alright, lastly, and more quickly, Christ our son. Now, this is a much bigger stretch than the other two. There’s no clear scripture that points to Jesus as our son. But there is precedence for the image in the beautiful writing of a 14th century German theologian named Meister Eckhart.  Eckhart wrote,

We are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the Divine Son takes place unceasingly, but does not take place within myself?  And what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace, but I am not also full of grace?  What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and culture?  This, then, is the fullness of time: when the Son of God is begotten in us.

I realize this is quite mystical, indulging in poetics and metaphor. This isn’t likely what Michard Card meant, I don’t think. Maybe I’m wrong.

But the simple idea is this. Just as Mary held Jesus close to her heart, carried him with her wherever she went, and shared Jesus with the world, we metaphorically, spiritually, should do the same. 

So, I close with this short prayer: 

May our hearts, resting in God’s peace, hold Jesus close to our hearts and carry him in our hearts us as we live our lives and face our days. And may we let him grow in us and be a gift we share with those seeking the good news of great joy! Amen.