Resurrecting the Father
Special to The Eagle
A Sunday School teacher told her class the story of Jonah and the whale. During the discussion the teacher asked the children:, “If you were swallowed by a whale, how would you escape?”
A boy said: “I’d start a fire in the whale’s stomach, and he’d cough me out!”
Another said: “I’d stomp on his tongue until he spit me out.”
Then a little girl said: “I’d call my daddy and wait ’till he got me out.”
Now there’s a young lady who is very fortunate. She has a father that she can trust. On Sunday, we applauded our fathers and our surrogate dads who walked in the footsteps of our Father God by providing an atmosphere of unconditional love for their children. On Sunday, we also applauded a trustworthy God who comes to us like a loving compassionate father because we are “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36).
Rembrandt’s painting entitled “The Return of the Prodigal Son” depicts a figure representing God, the loving Father, as blind. He sees His son not with his eyes but with his heart to which he is tenderly holding his son’s head. In addition, the Father God has one male hand pulling the wayward son to him, and one female hand caressing the son’s back. The painting invites us to participate in life as our Father God with an all-embracing, all-forgiving, caressing, compassionate love, so that our children and all of God’s children will experience the unconditional love of God because they see a loving God in us.
The best way that I know for us to be restorers of paths of righteousness and gardeners of green pastures in which even our enemies may dwell is to become like a dog: in the presence of others wag your tails and not your tongues.
Three boys were bragging about their dads. One boy bragged: “My Dad knows the mayor.” The next boy said: “So, my dad knows the governor.” The third boy said: “That’s nothing, my Dad knows God!”
Resurrect the Father in your life so that others may say: “Wow, he, she knows God” and through you learn that “God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn its people, but to save them!” (Jn. 3:17).
On Sunday, as you celebrated Father’s Day, I hope you also praised God by saying: “Happy Father’s Day, God!” And I also pray that you will resurrect God the Father into your lives so that modeling yourself after Him you will walk behind, beside and ahead of your children and God’s people on Pine Island, offering them your support, encouragement and your “present help in every trouble” (Ps. 46:1).
Roger Lemke is pastor at Fisher’s of Men Lutheran Church, 10360 Stringfellow Road. Sunday worship is at 9 a.m. Tuesday Bible study is at 10 a.m. Call 238-1170.