It was an interesting and unusual Father’s Day for me this past Sunday. I had just arrived in Taiwan the night before, and I was still recovering from jet lag and only just beginning to adjust to the twelve-hour time difference. It felt odd to be so far away from all my children, as well as half a day ahead of them (by the time their day was beginning, I was going to bed for the night). I thought about my own Dad, of course, remembering him with thanksgiving for his life in Christ and for all that he taught me by word and example. He’s been at rest from his labors in the nearer presence of Christ Jesus for almost seven years now, and that felt poignant again on Sunday.
The Holy Gospel (for Series A) was also poignant in connection with Father’s Day this year, a portion of our Lord’s discourse at His sending of the Apostles in St. Matthew 10 (verses 21-33). It opened with the warning that “brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death.” Similar cautions will mark the beginning of the Holy Gospel this coming Sunday, as well, in which our Lord points to the divisions that He and His Cross bring to households and families on earth, and to the fact that love for Him must yet exceed one’s love and loyalty for father, mother, son, and daughter. These are hard and challenging words, to be sure, but they are necessary for the Christian faith and life.
I’m exceedingly grateful that my earthly father did not hinder or oppose my faith in Christ Jesus, but rather taught me from the start to fear, love, and trust in the Holy Triune God, to know and love His Word, and to find my life within His Church. In much the same way, I am profoundly grateful that my sons and sons-in-law are teaching these same treasures of the Kingdom of God to my grandchildren. Nothing could be more precious to me as a father and grandfather.
I was humbled in consideration of these gracious gifts of God, which He has so mercifully bestowed upon my family, as I visited with the men of Holy Word Lutheran Church here in Hsinchu, Taiwan, following the Divine Service. We were discussing the Holy Gospel together, and the challenges, doubts, and fears that confront us in our confession of Christ Jesus within this fallen and perishing world. One after another of these faithful Christian men mentioned that his parents and extended family are not Christians, and that he looks for opportunities to share the Gospel with them, relying on the Lord to work repentance and faith where and when it pleases Him. Not surprisingly, almost none of the men had grown up Christian, but they were brought to faith by the Lord through His Word and Holy Spirit – through the brave and bold confession of faithful disciples who were not afraid or ashamed to speak of Christ Jesus to their neighbors. The stories I heard were fascinating to me, and encouraging in more ways than I could even describe.
Far away from my own children, missing my father, and hearing the stories of men whose fathers neither know nor love the Lord, I was powerfully reminded of the Father and the new family that we are given in Christ Jesus. Appropriately, it is with that God and Father that the Holy Gospel for this past Sunday concludes: Not only the sobering word of warning – that whoever denies Christ before men, He will also deny before His Father in heaven – but also the comforting promise, that whoever confesses Christ before men, He will also confess before His Father. And lest we suppose that it all hinges and depends upon us, He also declares that we are known and loved by the Father, more valuable to Him than many sparrows. We fear, love, and trust in Him above all things, because He first loves us in Christ Jesus, our merciful and great High Priest in all things pertaining to God. And whatever we lose in this body and life on earth, in Christ Jesus we gain many times over within the household and family of one God and Father: “Houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal Life” (St. Mark 10:30). By His grace, God grant that we hand over those sacred treasures and traditions to our children – and to our children’s children – by the confession of His Word and faith within our homes, and by bringing them to the household of His Holy Church.