20 Reasons Why
My father grew up on the farm. My
grandfather was a tenant farmer, and my grandmother died young when my father
was about eight years old. My dad was the middle child of five. He had a
stepmother who was abusive towards her children. He was neglected, unloved, and
uncared for. Then, he met his first love (my mom) in his teenage years. They
eventually got married. When I was young, I hardly remember my dad say, “I love
you.” I knew he loved me, but he didn’t know how to express his feelings. When
I was a senior in college, my dad attended a Christian conference for fathers.
During the conference, he wrote me a letter, “20 Reasons Why I Love You.” At
the end of the letter he wrote something like this:
My
son, I pray in earnest for you daily that God’s will be done in your life. The
greatest news in my life was when you recently shared with me that you were
called to ministry. I just rejoiced and gave thanks to my God. It is, without doubt, a narrow path, but it is deeply rewarding and fulfilling. I know you will
be a good pastor! I pray that you will be a good and faithful servant of the
Master to draw many people to Christ.
My dad still doesn’t say much. But now I know how much he loves me, and I do believe that he did the best he could as he raised me. On this special day I give thanks to God for my father. For some, Father’s Day is a happy and joyous day. But for some, it can be a hard and difficult day. But I have good news for all of us. Wherever we are in our life journey, we have a Father who loves us, and who is able. Today’s passage is the message, “Love Letter,” for you and me from our heavenly Father.
Father’s Love
Thus says the Father, who created
us, who formed us, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by
name, you are mine” (v. 1). Here the context is very important. Right before
today’s passage, the Lord was grieving over his people’s rebellion and
stubbornness. He says, “Hear, you deaf; look, you blind, and see… You have seen
many things, but you pay no attention; your ears are open, but you do not
listen… Which of you will listen to this or pay close attention in time to
come?” (Isa 42:18, 20, 23) That was Isaiah 42. The shift in tone from Isaiah 42
to 43 (today’s passage) is breathtaking. What God will now do is pure grace. God simply declares through the
prophet that he will rescue them, he will be with them, he will love them – no
matter what. This is the Father’s love. “But God showed his great love for us
in this: While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).
On January 24, 2012, George Tyson (61), a devoted father, sacrificed his life to save his 32-year-old disabled son, Garry, when a car drove into them as they walked together. The father pushed the son out of the path, but he took the full impact himself. He was killed almost instantly, but his son was transported to hospital and later discharged shortly with minor injuries. Garry fell and suffered brain damage when he was 18 months. Since then, he was left with learning difficulties. George was devoted to his son and became a fulltime caregiver. They were always together. Particularly, they enjoyed going on long walks together. George’s daughter said, “Garry was inseparable from his dad and the huge amount of time, care and patience my dad showed will be hugely missed… My dad died doing the thing he loved the most – he was walking with my brother Garry down the coast road.”[1] When a car drove toward them as they walk together, the Father so willingly and instinctively sacrificed his life for his disabled son.
This story reminds us of our heavenly Father’s love towards us. For me personally, this story also reminds of Henri Nouwen’s encounter with Adam, who was profoundly retarded and unable to speak, walk, or dress himself. At that time Nouwen was a priest in residence for mentally and physically handicapped people at Daybreak community. He particularly became a close friend of Adam. Each morning Nouwen took almost two hours to help Adam – bathing, shaving, brushing his teeth, combing his hair, helping him eat breakfast, and so on. He said it had been difficult for him to live with Adam at first. But he had learned to love Adam, truly to love him. In the process he had learned what it must be like for God to love us—spiritually retarded and disabled. In this process Nouwen began to grasp the fuller dimensions of God’s love for us. He said, “We, like him (Adam), are also precious, graced, and beloved children of God, whether we see ourselves as rich or poor, intelligent or disabled, good-looking or unattractive.”[2]
How Wide, Deep, Long, High
Our heavenly Father says to us,
“You are precious and honored in my sight, and I love you” (v. 4). The Message
Bible interprets verses 3 and 4 this way:
I paid a huge price for you: all of
Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in! That’s how much you mean to me!
That’s how much I love you! I’d sell off the whole world to get you back, trade
the creation just for you.
That’s our Father’s heart for you and me. And in Isaiah 53, only 10 chapters later, God shows us how he would prove his love, how he would rescue us from the Pit and set us free. God the Father comes to us in Christ offering himself to us. Isaiah 53:10 says, “Yet it was the Father’s will to crush his Son and cause him to suffer.” Why? What good father could wish for his son to be crushed? What’s the reason for this? The answer is given in the second half of the verse. “God’s plan was that he give his Son as an offering for our sin, so that we may have life.” That’s how much God loves us.
Perhaps many of you remember the story of the prodigal son. In the story the father was not just idly waiting, but actively waiting – always hoping, never giving up on his son. While the younger son was still far off, his father saw him first and ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. In Jesus’ time, however, a Middle Eastern man never ran. If he were to run, he would have to hitch up his tunic so he would not trip. If he did this, it would show his bare legs. In that culture, it was humiliating and shameful for a man to show his bare legs. The question is what motivated the Father to shame himself? Kenneth Bailey, author of The Cross & the Prodigal, explains that if a Jewish son lost his inheritance among Gentiles, and then returned home, the community would perform a ceremony, called the kezazah. They would break a large pot in front of him and yell, “You are now cut off from your people!” The community would totally reject him. So probably the Father ran in order to get to his son before the community gets to him, so that his son would not be humiliated and rejected. The Father had taken the full shame instead of his son.[3] That’s how much our Father loves us.
We Win
A man rushed into church one Sunday
and shouted to those gathered there for the service, “I’ve read the end of the
book! We win!” Yes, God’s love wins. God’s grace wins. So we will win. In
today’s passage God promises, “Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and
gather you from the west” (v. 5). That’s the end of the story. In Psalm 22,
Psalm of Christ’s passion, the psalmist describes in detail how Jesus would
suffer and die. But then, he shifts gear and tells us what must come after
this. “All the ends of the earth will
remember and turn to the Lord… our
children will also serve him. Future
generations will be told about the Lord. They will come and proclaim his
righteousness…” (vv. 27, 30-31a). That’s the end of the story.
Today we may grieve. Some of us may grieve because our fathers are not here anymore. Some of us may grieve because we have painful memories of our fathers. Some of us may grieve because our children are lost and became estranged from us. Wherever we are in our life journey, we have a Father who loves us. We have a Father who calls us by name. We have a Father who is mighty to save. The one who calls us is faithful and he will do it (1 Th 5:24). We will win.
In his time, in his time
He makes all things beautiful
In his time
Lord please show me everyday
As you're teaching me your way
That you do just what you say
In your time
[1]
“A Father’s Sacrifice” (January 24, 2012), https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2091084/Father-sacrifices-life-leaping-road-save-disabled-son-run-down.html
[2]
Henri Nouwen, Adam: God’s Beloved
(New York: Orbis Book, 1997), 31.
[3]
Mary Gregory, “Is Rembrandt’s ‘Return of the Prodigal Son’ the greatest
painting of all time?” Catholic Digest (March 28, 2019)
https://www.catholicdigest.com/amp/from-the-magazine/way-of-beauty/is-rembrandts-prodigal-son-the-greatest-painting-of-all-time/
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