Sermon preached by John A. Huffman, Jr.
December 18, 2005
Copyright © 2005, John A. Huffman, Jr.
All rights reserved.
JESUS-THE EVERLASTING FATHER
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. (Isaiah 9:6)
"Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe-the best one-and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate." (Luke 15:21-24)
Let me tell you a story.
It's one that Jesus told 2000 years ago. It's as contemporary as today!
It's a story about a son. It's a story about a father. It's a story about a homecoming. And it's a story about another son.
Meet the first son. He's actually the youngest of the two. He and his brother grew up in the house of his father. He had been an adorable baby. Have you ever seen one that wasn't? He had a normal childhood. He did things the way his family did them. His life was conventional.
Then he began to change. It started during his teens. The "old man" began to get on his nerves. You remember how it was when you were a teenager. Dad seemed too restrictive. His father would tell him how to live the smart way. He had a curfew. There were certain lifestyle expectations if he was going to live at home.
Somehow he couldn't understand that what his father asked him to do and told him not to do wasn't his father's endeavor to make him feel inferior and to limit his freedom. Nonetheless, he just felt hemmed in. He couldn't see that boundaries were needed, that guidance was essential. He knew other teenagers whose parents were not as strict. In his myopia, he couldn't see the educational product of parents who raise up their children in total freedom to become "brats," children who are unbearable to others and to themselves. Instead, he yearned for a fictitious freedom that knew no limits, no fear, no reverence.
I have to believe that this son and his father in the parable told by Jesus must have talked about their differences on many occasions. The son would say, "I want to be independent, and I've had it with all your 'dos and don'ts.'"
The father would reply, "Do you really think you have no freedom? After all, you are my son. You can come to me at anytime you want. You can tell me anything that troubles you. There are many young men in this world who would give anything to have the privileges you have. Don't you consider that to be freedom? Everything I own belongs to you and your older brother. I love you. I provide your housing, your food, your transportation, your tuition, your spending money. I'm available to talk to you anytime you want. You don't have to account to anyone except me. And yet you complain that you're not free?"
The son flares up in anger, saying, "Listen Dad, I want to be honest with you. I don't give a damn about all this stuff. I can't stand the pressure you're putting on me. To me, freedom means to be able to do what I want to do when I want to do it."
The father, chin down, head tilted, reflectively replies, "And for me, freedom means that you should become all that you're meant to be. There's no need for you to become a slave of your desires, addicted to your ambition, your need for recognition, your love of money and all the erotic stimulations that make your blood rush hot. This stuff will ultimately hold you captive. That's why I set up the rules I do. I know it's hard for you to realize it. They are not there to limit your freedom. In fact, it's just the opposite. I share these with you because I love you. I want you to be free. I want you to inherit all the physical, economic and spiritual privileges I have for you. Please understand that it's love that undergirds everything I share with you, even the 'dos and the don'ts.'"
The son, by this time, is incensed. He charges out of the room angry, mumbling to himself. He slams the door. Something within him gives him a sneaking suspicion that his father is right. But he doesn't want to accept this rightness now. He has other plans. Those plans don't square with what his father is saying. His dad is too narrow a person for him. His heart is racing. All of his youthful passions are surging through his system. He says to himself, "After all, I'm a healthy young man. Dad is 'over the hill.' He doesn't understand who I am. I have the right to be me. I'm going to be me. He won't pen me in any longer!"
The son is convinced that he may be missing something in life. If only he could just do his own thing. He wouldn't do it forever. He has no intention of screwing up his whole life. He just wants to live a little bit. After all, he's young. He has all this creative potential, and he feels so hemmed in at home.
A couple of years go by. The father and son have these conversations a bit more frequently. Each time, they become a bit more intense. They're drifting farther and farther apart.
One day, the father does something so surprising to the son. When faced with the most spiteful accusatory words, the father quietly goes to his safe and takes out a large amount of money and, there on the spot, gives his son his entire inheritance. In the spirit of kindness, with tenderness, he says, "Here son. Here's the entire amount. It's yours. You're welcome to do with it whatever you choose."
The father watches as his son takes the money. He observes him moving around the house, making preparations to leave home. He watches him with a father's broken heart as the son goes out into the world with such expectancy.
Then the waiting begins. The father waits and waits. And he never stops waiting.
Now the son is free. He can do whatever he wants. There's one thing he really shouldn't overlook, but he does. He overlooks the fact that everything he's free to do has come from the father.
There he is, a handsome picture, that son-good-looking, well-dressed, able to afford the best food and drink, having the money to travel anywhere. He stays in the best hotels. He enjoys the good things in life. No, there's nothing wrong with money, food, clothing, fine accommodations, good entertainment, a lot of laughter. Nothing wrong, that is, except that these very good things become his undoing when he is separated in spirit from the very father who made all these things possible.
How graphically the German theologian preacher Helmut Thielicke, from whom I've received some of the inspiration for this part of my message, describes the son's thought processes in up-to-date terms in his book titled The Waiting Father :
Every age has its own peculiar "far country," and so has ours. All these estrangements, in whatever age they occur, have certain common features. It is true that we work with the Father's capital, with our energy and ambition, our highly developed reason, our technical skills, our ability to be inspired by great things and great ideas-for, after all, these are all things which the Father has given us! But we use them without him, even though we may still have moments when we talk about providence and the Almighty. That's why we get nowhere. That's why our capital keeps constantly dwindling. That's why what we possess explodes in our hands. That's why it cripples us. That's why modern man has bad dreams as soon as he is alone and has a little time for reflection. That's why he has to turn on the radio or run to the movies to divert himself. It's true, isn't it: this is the portrait of us all that presents itself here; this is the portrait of our whole era?
As Walter Cronkite used to put it, "That's the way it is!"
The more unhappy and lost the son feels, the more he celebrates, the more he throws himself into the company of his so-called friends, and the more he diverts himself into his lavish party lifestyle. You know what that means. It means that he can no longer be alone. He must have something going on around him all the time. He must have diversion, as Thielicke goes on to so incisively observe:
But when he cannot and therefore must, then he is no longer free! No, God knows, he is not free. This is the great new thing that suddenly dawns upon him--him who, after all, set out to be free, free above all from his father.
He is bound to his homesickness, so he must amuse himself.
He is bound to urges, so he must satisfy them.
He is bound to a grand style of living and therefore he cannot let it go. He would be prepared to lie and cheat and disregard every good resolution, so spellbound is he by his standard of living.
That's what freedom looks like outside the Father's house--to be bound, to have to do this and that, to be under a spell, to be compelled to pursue the path he has chosen by an inexorable law. His friends and others when they look at him think: "What an imposing, free man, so independent of his otherwise very influential old man! He pays no attention to principles or education; he's the very type of the sovereign 'superman,' the prototype of autonomy."
But he, the prodigal, sees it differently. He sees his condition from the inside. The world sees only the facade and what is in the show-window of this botched-up life. He hears the rattle of the invisible chains in which he walks, and they're beginning to make him groan. Nobody helps him. Nobody really knows him. Nobody really cares for him. The only one who knows him, the only one who cares, is the distant father who watched him go away.
He depletes his capital. His money is gone. His friends evaporate. he finally gets a job and ends up, this kosher Jewish lad, feeding pigs. This hungry young man is not even allowed to eat the slop.
It's amazing how philosophical we get when we have to reach up to touch bottom, isn't it? He had a lot of time to be philosophical. He begins to think of home. He thinks of his father. He thinks of his brother. He begins to envy the very hired servants of his father, whom he used to take so for granted. They have it better than he has it. They have bread enough and plenty left over. You see, it isn't his disgust with his condition that brings him to repentance. It's his memory and knowledge of home that does it. He knows where he came from. He intuitively realizes where he belongs. He's homesick. Repentance is turning away from where you are and going back home to the father who really cares.
Do you, by any chance, see yourself in this picture?
You know the rest of the story. You know how he makes the long, humble journey home, determining in the process what he will say to his father. How unworthy he feels. "I've blown it," he says to himself. "I'll go to my father and tell him I've sinned against God, against you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your servants. Just give me a job, any job, where I'll have food to eat, basic clothing and shelter from the elements."
But while he was yet at a distance, his father, who for all these many, many months, even years, had been waiting, saw him. The father had compassion. He ran and embraced him and kissed him. The father would hear nothing of this "servant business." Instead, he calls his servants together, asks that they bring the best robe. He puts it on him. He places a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet. He orders them to bring the fatted calf and kill it and prepare a feast. "'. . . for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' and they began to celebrate" (Luke 15:24).
Now, as you know, there's another character to this story. It's the other brother. He's bit older. He's a very different person. He's a quiet type of person. He's much more conventional. He does things the right way.
He remembers those years of arguments he overheard between his younger brother and father, and he remembers the bitterness he felt when he saw his father give away that huge amount of money to that rebel, no good guy. He remembers his own fantasies about what his brother must be doing, the good times he must be having, while he's stuck at home living by the "dos and don'ts."
He didn't like the conflict. He held his brother in contempt. But maybe, just perhaps, he was the dumb one. Perhaps there was a big world out there where the pay-offs would be much greater than faithfully fulfilling one's responsibilities at home.
No, he knew that he was right. He would do it. He would get up early. He would work heard. He'd control his sexual drives. He'd marry the right woman at the right time. He'd be faithful to her and to his children, if they were able to have children.
As the months went by, and the coming years, he got so used to living this way that he didn't realize how good he had it. He began to take his father for granted. He didn't think to say thank you. Because to thank, one must first think. So he plodded on day in and day out. And when he got to feeling bad about himself, he began to think about his brother. When he'd get done with his fantasies of envy, he'd turn his thoughts to cynical judgement, damning his brother as a no-good fool.
Suddenly, one day, as he was coming in from the field, he heard music and dancing. He called out to one of the servants and asked what this meant. He replied, "Your brother's come, and your father's killed the fatted calf, because he's received him safe and sound."
His anger turned to a white-heat rage. He refused to go into the party. His father came out, begging him to join in the celebration. Distancing himself from his father with hard-bitten words spoken in deep resentment, he declares:
". . . Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!" (Luke 15:29-30)
How quickly we disassociate ourselves from the prodigal. We say "your son," not "my brother." We've done it the right way. We've been faithful. We've gone to church every Sunday. We are even religious leaders. And yet, is it not as possible for us to forfeit our sonship as did the prodigal and actually become a stranger and a "grumbling servant" in the Father's house?
This is quite a story, isn't it? I'm always quite amazed at how on target Jesus is to where you and I live today.
You would have thought that He had created this parable at the end of 2005, as we're moving into the new year of 2006. You'd think that he had read the latest pollsters and social commentators who periodically analyze our American culture.
These are people like Daniel Yankelovich who, in his book New Rules, described what I see as a tremendous parallel with this parable of Jesus. He describes the traditional American, a thrifty, productive person, very much committed to the work ethic. This person lived a conventional existence. He or she was committed to the ethic of self-denial and deferred gratification. This person smacks of the "elder-brother syndrome." Life is lived with a sense of responsibility, nurtured by religion, the Depression and two world wars. Granted, there have always been the rebels in every generation, yet there are some of us in this sanctuary who have done things the right way. We've lived by the "dos and don'ts" of both God and society. We've benefitted from them. We've prospered to one extent or another. Now we're mind-boggled, and some of us even resentful, of a younger generation that has come along, which is more laid back, more pleasure-oriented.
Yankelovich and others describe an increasing percentage of Americans who are deeply committed to a philosophy of self-fulfillment, the feeling that ego needs, sensation and excitement take priority over work and the needs of others, including spouse and children.
And there is that middle group that embraces the same self-centered philosophy in varying degrees. They hold on to old beliefs as being important. This does not belie the fact that they're strongly impacted by this new mentality.
Perhaps to some extent, or maybe to an enormous extent, some of us here this morning are playing the lifestyle of the younger brother. We're not about to live by the work ethic. Ours is not a life built on responsibility. We're going to demand what we perceive to be ours, and we're going to do with it whatever makes us feel good.
However, we may be in for a rude awakening. As long as we're living off the capital built up by a work ethic by a growing population and by elaborate natural resources, we can kid ourselves into thinking that we can just go on and on being richer and richer and experiencing more and more pleasure. Even the social commentators alert us, even as our society has moved beyond the traditional ethic of "self-denial," we are now being forced to leave behind the excesses of the "me generation" for what Yankelovich calls a new "ethic of commitment," in which we discover new rules of living that support self-fulfillment through deeper personal relationships and more enduring commitments to the world of work and the business of common survival.
Others like Amitai Etzioni, in his book titled An Immodest Agenda: Rebuilding America Before the 21st Century, described the "ego-centered mentality" as the villain of our day. He referred to the "hollowing of America," that widespread search for fulfillment that cripples the family, schools and other institutions that mediate between the individual and the State. He described attitudes that became unleashed in the 1960s and 1970s that had so corroded our American life that no political or economic renewal would be possible, unless these attitudes were changed.
He predicted that our economy would be destroyed by our de-emphasis on work and our increased interest in self-gratification. He expressed his conviction that we have a romantic attitude toward schooling brought about by the application of progressive approaches in education. He referred to the age of "ego" in which marriage is often less an emotional bonding than a breakable alliance between self-seeking individuals. He noted that the proportion of married couples in our population was decreasing by a perceptible percentage each year and, if that continued at the same accelerating rate, there hypothetically could be a date in the future when there would not be a single American family left. He called for a sweeping aside of the anti-family propaganda that was so much the vogue. He noted that our carelessness about rules and laws was shredding the social contract. People begin to feel foolish when they think that everybody else is cheating on their taxes, driving above the speed limit, smoking marijuana and gambling.
Both these men and others have sent warning signals calling for a greater sense of family, in which both the older brother subordinates his responsibility-oriented work ethic and the younger brother subordinates his individualistic pleasure-oriented me-centered existence to the ultimate good of the community.
Frankly, my friends, Jesus was, is and will be far ahead of the most contemporary psychologists and sociologists, in that He describes a lifestyle that comes from commitment to himself, which brings the joy of right relationship with God, yourself and with your fellow humans.
The prophet Isaiah declared the Christmas message, the Easter message, the very heart of the Gospel, 700 years before Jesus came. His message resounds through all the centuries, declaring that Jesus Christ shall be called "Everlasting Father!"
This Jesus said, "I and the Father am One." This Jesus said, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father."
When Isaiah referred to Jesus as "the Everlasting Father," he was not trying to make a distinction between the persons of the God-head. He was stating that Jesus is God-who is the Everlasting Father, tenderly taking care of His people.
I came across these two statements describing a father.
Statement One: "A father is a man who expects his son to be as good a man as he meant to be."
Statement Two: "A father is someone who carries pictures where his money used to be."
If you doubt God's love for you as your Everlasting Father, just think of your love for your children and/or grandchildren. Thursday and Friday of this week, I welcomed families and friends to our Early Childhood School Christmas program. I watched as sophisticated fathers and grandfathers sat with eyes glued to their children/grandchildren as they performed. Men who could negatively review the best of performances at the Performing Arts Center were waving, taking pictures and literally adoring their child and that child's performance. God has even greater paternal feelings toward you and me, no matter what age we are!
This week I carried out a little exercise. I've been writing down qualities I see in Jesus as Father. I'm discovering a richness of understanding about Jesus. I'm realizing that I know very little about the tender side of God except as I see it in the Person of Jesus Christ.
Here are some of the qualities with which I've been struck.
This Waiting Father, this Forever Father, this Everlasting Father says that there is something beyond being bad, being the stupid rebel who does his own thing and ends up paying a disastrous price. He also says that there is something beyond being good, the nice boy, the good girl who does everything Mom and Dad's way, earning the rewards and being proud and envying the fun, the pleasure of the prodigal. He says there's something beyond. It's a homecoming in which you come to Him and participate in a family reunion.
Last month, as I disembarked my Dallas/Orange County flight, I witnessed a heartwarming homecoming that I just can't get out of my mind.
There at the disembarkation gate by special dispensation from the security officials was a mother with two cameras and her five children. Each child was holding helium-inflated balloons plus big hand-painted signs with such statements as "Welcome home, Father!" and "You are our hero!"
Curious about what was about to happen, I delayed my normal dash to the luggage carousel and stood behind, watching this family with eyes glued to the disembarkment door. The mother had the video camcorder aimed at the door, as the passengers both before me and after me streamed off the plane. There was a break in the action, when temporarily no passengers got off and you could see disappointment on the children's faces.
Then, more people emerged, and then there was another break in the action, at which point the mother turned to the kids and said, "I hope Daddy made his flight."
By that time, quite a few of us had formed a semi-circle behind them, and one whispered, "Don't worry. He's on there."
And then, after what seemed an interminable amount of time, a young, handsome soldier in his military fatigues, a bit dazed with jet lag from his long flights back from Iraq, emerged. At first, he didn't see his family. Then his face lit up as he rushed toward his children, lifting them one by one in his arms, embracing them with hugs and kisses. I, a total stranger, slipped up quite presumptuously behind the wife and grabbed from her one of her cameras, which she released without question, and shot three photographs of her and her husband embracing.
What a picture it was of a family reunion the way it's supposed to be--a celebration as a long-separated husband and wife, father and children, are reunited.
I told this story at our Thanksgiving Day service and received a note from a visitor who instantly recognized the family and told the wife that I had shared the story and, at her request, wrote the note thanking me for taking pictures of her and her husband, noting she doesn't get many pictures of herself and that she was so moved that so many people at the airport had waited to watch her greet her husband.
I don't know what kind of homecoming is appropriate for you.
But I do know Christmas is all about such a homecoming. Jesus is the Everlasting Father, God in human form. He yearns for such a celebrative homecoming. He wants to embrace you with His eternal life, His God-quality life of forgiveness, new beginning and strength to live one day at a time in this life and the life beyond.
Rejoice! God's not just way out there but is a good Father who's come in human form to wrap you in His arms.
Come to Him as you see Him as a Babe in the manger of Bethlehem. Come to Him as you see Him with arms outstretched on the cross. Come to Him in His resurrected form as He yearns to embrace you, to accept you, to make you His own. Come to Him as He sits at the great marriage feast of the Lamb throwing a party for the family, as that elder-brother part of you and that prodigal-son part of you humbles yourself and accepts the invitation and comes to the Everlasting Father.
See, the biblical story we label the "Prodigal Son" really isn't that at all. It is the story of "The Loving, Waiting Father."
It is a story of the Son, the Baby foretold by Isaiah, whose birthday we celebrate this week. This Jesus is the Wonderful Counselor. This Jesus is the Mighty God. This Jesus is the Everlasting Father, who lets you go with a broken heart and who faithfully waits your return to a reunion with Him and your brothers and sisters in Christ.
Have you returned? Will you return? Let us celebrate together the advent of this Christ, the Everlasting Father, and the family reunion made possible by Him!