A Father to the Fatherless

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A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy habitation.                   --Psalm 68:5

Not long after Mother's Day last month, I saw a heartbreaking internet posting from a college classmate of mine.  She said she always finds herself mourning on Mother's Day each year, because she is childless.  She has had multiple miscarriages through the years.  Her husband left her, she said, because she could not bear him children.

Well-meaning people have tried to comfort her, telling her that all of her babies are waiting for her in heaven.  It's for the best, they tell her.  God's will, and all that.

Like Job said, "Miserable comforters are you all!" (Job 16:2).

So with Father's Day approaching tomorrow, I am sensitive.  By and large, men do not mourn being unable to sire children.  Not like women do.  But millions in our culture and in our world have no father.  Many have grown up in homes without fathers.  Some, like me, have lost their fathers later in life.  Still others may carry a father wound so deep that they have written their paternal parent out of their lives.

For these people, Father's Day is meaningless at best.  At worst, it is a reminder of the Dad they imagined, but who walked out on them, or maybe was in prison, or perhaps has passed away.  There is a Dad-shaped hole in their hearts that is almost impossible to fill.

Almost.

When Jesus was on this earth, He established His own Sonship with the Father.  He taught that God can be our Father, as well, if we let Him.  Remember our Lord's Model Prayer?  He taught us to address God as "Our Father in Heaven." (Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2).  In this way, He calls us to relationship with God.  To a culture that had been raised "in the fear of the Lord," the petitions in the Model Prayer would have been thought of in a different light than maybe we think of them today.

• "Your kingdom come." They thought God would come on a white horse with the sword of righteousness in His hand, to deliver His people from oppression.  Jesus taught them that a loving Father manifested Himself as a baby born in a manger, who preached a message of love, forgiveness, and peace.
• "Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven."  They thought God's will was that His enemies would die by the sword or live as servants of His people.  Jesus taught them that a loving Father had a message of hope and salvation to the Gentiles, so that all who call on His name shall be saved.
• "Give us this day our daily bread."  They knew that God had fed their forefathers with manna in the wilderness; they also knew what the Psalmist had written: "I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread." (Psalm 37:25).  Jesus taught us to share our bread with those who need it, as we would share it with our brothers and sisters in the same house.
• "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."  They approached God with fear and trembling, hoping He would show them mercy.  Jesus taught us that we can approach God with confidence, knowing that He loves us and wants to remove our sins from us "as far as the east is from the west."

In my quiet time today, I read the 10th chapter of Mark.  It is striking to me that the chapter begins with teaching about divorce, and is immediately followed by His command to "let the little children come unto me."  The order and proximity is the same in the companion passage in Matthew chapter 19.  The Pharisees sought to trap Jesus.  They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"  Jesus answered with the ideal that had been put in place since the Garden of Eden: "At the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'." 

We see in our culture today that men will divorce their wives for any and every reason.  This ought not to be.  God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16).  When confronted with this truth, men today will go back to what the Pharisees told Jesus.  "Moses said that a man could give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away." (Matthew 19:7).  Look, Jesus, they were saying.  Everybody does it.  Even Moses said in the law that it was permissible.  Today we hear that everybody does it--even the Church allows it.  Even so, Jesus said it is not God's perfect will, or even His plan for us.  He said our hearts are hardened, and we call evil good.

Immediately following this passage, it says

People were bringing little children to Jesus to have Him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them.  When Jesus saw this, He was indignant.  He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.  I tell you the truth, anyone who will no receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."  And he took the children in His arms, put His hands on them and blessed them.  --Mark 10:13-16

I might be going out on a limb here, but isn't it possible that the children being brought to Jesus were the children whose parents had divorced?  Jesus had just rebuked the Pharisees for teaching that a man could abandon his family for any and every reason.  This may have emboldened the divorced mothers to bring their now fatherless children into His presence.  When the disciples tried to shoo them away, Jesus corrected them.  He blesses the fatherless; He scoops them up into His arms and shows the love of the Father to them.

Many times, Jesus said that He came to fulfill the Law.  Moses' Law had special provisions for the widows and the fatherless.  They were to be fed and clothed (Deuteronomy 26:12).  They were to be protected (Deuteronomy 24;17).  Justice was not to be denied them (Isaiah 1:17).  "Leave your fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let your widows trust in me." (Jeremiah 49:11).

If you have not known your father, if he abandoned you, or is imprisoned, or has passed away, let Jesus heal your heart.  Let God be your Father.  Trust Him to be your Protector, your Provider, your Peace.

A special message to Men of God who may read this:  if you know of a fatherless child, step up and be a godly example to her.  Share God's truth and His wisdom with him.  Do what you can to stand in the gap for that child.  God will bless you for it.