Our Father in Heaven

Matthew 6:9

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Bill was searching for something. As one of my members, he was never shy about telling me that he had been adopted. But one of the neat stories about Bill was that the nurse that helped with his delivery in the hospital had recorded all the details of his delivery, wrote it down in a letter, and sent that letter with Bill to his adopted parents. And for Bill, it was always a comfort knowing that his mom had never really wanted to give him up.

You see, the question, though, that always haunted Bill was the question Where was my father? Why wasn’t my father there? There’s a lot of people in our world today that are asking those same kind of questions. We live in a world of broken fatherhood. We live in a world where more and more people are wondering. Where was my father when I needed him? Maybe Dad was present in the home, but not in any real meaningful sense of the word. Maybe people had grown up with a good relationship with their father, but that relationship was cut short and he was taken out of this world too soon. And there were so many things left unsaid and undone.

Today, there are many fathers that are striving to live up to this ideal of fatherhood. They’re making themselves the promise that they’re going to be better than the fathers that they had. Yet every day they feel that conviction in their hearts that they are falling short of that promise. More than anything, everyone realizes that to be a father means more than just creating life. It means to have a relationship with that life.

All this yearning, all this search for fatherhood is proof that there is an ideal fatherhood out there, that there’s an ideal that we are all striving for. And even if we all fall short of it, it’s proof that there is a real father, that we have a father in heaven. And for us it is such a tender note that God opens up the Lord’s Prayer by teaching us to address God as our Father who art in heaven. We’re confessing that He is the source of everything good. He is the source of justice and truth and fairness. That he is the perfect heavenly parent. He’s not like the helicopter parent that’s going to swoop in and keep us from everything bad that could ever happen to us. He’s not the snowplow parent that’s going to push everything out of our way. But as our Father in heaven, he’s going to let us face just the right amount of adversity in our life so that we grow in character.

But more than that, your God, your Father in heaven, he doesn’t just create life. He desires a relationship, a meaningful relationship with that life. And the Bible tells a story of everything God would do to create that meaningful relationship with you. The cross and the Open tomb declare the story of how much God was willing to sacrifice all so He could connect with you and take you into heaven to be with him. You have a father in heaven, a father who has taken you and has adopted you as his own child through Holy Baptism. A father who sends the Holy Spirit into your heart and searches you out through the word and sacrament. You have a father who puts the spirit of his son Jesus, in your heart that cries out through all of life’s troubles and hardships, abba father!

And God, your father in heaven does all of this so that you as his child can confidently approach him and confidently knock on that door to heaven and say, Our Father who art in heaven.

Bill found what he was looking for. In fact, the day before he died, he met his half-siblings and found out that his father, his earthly father, had been searching for him. And for Bill, it was such a comfort to know that even though his father had never really successfully connected with him, that he had been wanted. But you see, what had really given Bill comfort was that years before that had happened. He found his father in heaven. He found a God who loved him and searched him out, who sent his son Jesus to die for him all to take Bill and adopt him as his own child. And today Bill is there with God in heaven. You have a father in heaven. Amen.