When will we begin showing respect to our father?

A rhetorical question that places any of us in a compromising position when the reality of how little we show for our father. Most children will always call for their mother after falling, or find themselves on the other side of doing right. There is a strong attachment for a child of any age to find a close relationship with their mother. The nine months she carries her child in her womb, feeding them through biological means, and speaking to them as they attach themselves to a voice of love no one else is able to accomplish. The child hears and develops that closeness they will need once they pass through the birth canal and experience a frightening world.

However, that child will need the power of a man with ties to the future of a hostile world that can pull that newborn infant away from the peace he finds with his mother.

Jesus was born in a stable and felt that love only a mother can give. But when the security of protection was needed his step-father was there to lead, teach, protect, and love in the only way a father is able. If you are a father the early years of their growth will be remembered by that child in a way that his mother can not give.

Abraham led his son Issac up a mountain, adhering to God’s command, and was going to offer him as a sacrifice to the Lord’s guarantee of his faith in God. Abraham must have agonized following the Lord’s command. But, God rewarded him by sending a Ram which caught its antlers in a bush, becoming the sacrifice.

Jesus was sent from heaven to take on humanity as the sacrifice his Father demanded of him. How many fathers would reach out and do the same for their son? I believe no father would do that.

Issac would find that reason his father Abraham obeyed God. Jesus also found why he took on humanity as a sacrifice to his Father to forgive us our sins. The point here is neither Abraham nor our Father in heaven had a desire to give their son up. Yet, a promise made centuries before was about to reach fruition to save humankind.

A mother is very close to her children even closer than to her husband. Her relationship to her child reaches a bodily function as she nursed that child establishing a unity that no man could even dream of doing. The father is also close to his children in a way different from his wife, but in a protecting guardian not only with strength, but a unity that can only come from a man.

Joseph, although a step-father to Jesus, took upon himself the role that is exclusive to what only a man can achieve. Jesus was aware of the love Joseph gave to him and each of us must be like that to our father.

We have two fathers; one a biological person who produced through his sperm a new life for God, and our Father in heaven who gave us life through the gift of a soul. Both fathers are essential and both deserve our love in return. We must honor both of our fathers.

Ralph B. Hathaway