Thoughts from my first Father's Day

Sunday I experienced my first Father's Day. Despite the parody promulgated within society defining this day as one on which basically ties and socks go on sale, I found great meaning in the moment. Specifically, I meditated on a couple different insights and encouragements.

First, I was struck with how, although this day is intended to honor the father, the joy and glory of the father finds referent not in the honoring of his own inherent role and position but in the adoration of his child by others. To say it another way, the pride of myself as a father is not related to any right or position of my own fatherhood; rather, it is inseparably tethered to the personhood of my daughter. This should be an obvious statement; however, it provided an affective picture in my mind to the relationship between God the Father and His beloved Son, specifically related to reflected glorification. Our divine scriptures make it clear that the Son seeks to glorify His Father through obedience to His call, and yet, it is the Father's intent to reflect this glorify back to the Son, Whom the Father will lift up to be worshiped by all. The glory of one is defined and realized through the other.

Secondly, it was a time to reflect a little more on something that has been progressively penetrating my soul - the violent sacrifice of the Son positioned with the lavish love of the creation. As I consider these married contrasts, I find my thinking darting between:

the goodness and divinity of God's creation
the pride and avariciousness of Man's fall

the humility of Christ's incarnation
the authority of Christ in giving up His spirit

the judgmental looks upon the pregnant yet hopeful Virgin
the return of condemning isolation thrust upon the already widowed mother of an executed criminal

the beloved Son
the forsaking Father

the baptism in the Jordan River
the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane

the glory of the resurrected Christ
the hope in the promised future resurrection and recreation

I think about the metanarrative of suffering, love, death, life, sin, and redemption. I wonder in awe at how all of this is held within the divine relation of Father and Child. I recognize that I don't understand the depths of this relationship, nor that of Creator and creation. Still, I am grateful that in experiencing fatherhood, I have greater appreciation and more paused consideration of God as Father. God communicating Himself to man in the redemption story through the relationship of Father and Son is one in which, though absent of full understanding, is replete in grace; in that, it maintains at least a level of common relatedness, of which now I share.

Having said all this, allow me to conclude by diverging to an old prayer:

Almighty God, heavenly Father, you have blessed us with the joy and care of children: Give us calm strength and patient wisdom as we bring them up, that we may teach them to love whatever is just and true and good, following the example of our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.