Finding Your Father

"In your law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is valid. I testify on my own behalf, and the Father who sent me testifies on my behalf." Then they said to him, "Where is your Father?" Jesus answered, "You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also." (John 8:17-19 NRSV)

These religious leaders were judging the testimony of Jesus based on physical perceptions and the social standards of the world. Because of this it was not possible for them to discern the Father or what the Father might be saying to them.

Was this because the Father was not speaking to them? Or was it because they were not hearing the Father because they had such false ideas about Him that created too much interference?

They were in essence saying that Jesus was lying about His Father's testimony because they could not see His Father anywhere around. In fact, the issue of who was the real father of Jesus was one of their hot topics of gossip, for they insisted that Jesus was an illegitimate child. Because of the serious doubts surrounding the circumstances of His birth, they were choosing to believe that Mary had likely had an illicit relationship with someone and that Joseph and Mary had conspired to cover it all up.

It was rumored that there were claims about a divine birth but that notion was even more preposterous. This reputation of illegitimacy followed Jesus all of His life and was brought up repeatedly in attempts to discredit Him.

Obviously we have no idea whether His earthly father was still alive yet at this time or not. But whether he was or not, he was evidently not available at the time of this story to testify about the authenticity of Jesus' testimony. And even if he had been there to testify they would have shredded his testimony with scorn and ridicule and unbelief.

In this question these Jews were clearly referring to Jesus' earthly father, but Jesus was speaking of His heavenly Father. They did not miss that point but wanted to steer attention away from His claim of divine parentage to draw attention to their insinuations about His illegitimacy.

The real issue comes back to something that haunts many of us more than we may think. Many who have had earthly fathers who caused deep wounds in their hearts or who may have been absent, to a great degree struggle with the issue of identity and value. They also have a very difficult time believing in a Father-God who really cares about and loves them like He claims He does. For many, the very word 'father' elicits strong triggers of repulsion or anger or deep bitterness because of their experiences in that part of their life.

Those of us who have father issues in our hearts are not overlooked by our heavenly Father even though we so deeply misunderstanding and distrust Him because of our preconditioning. He fully understands why we have such strong resistance to His claims of love for us but is eagerly ready and fully able to heal all of those deep wounds and fears and scars if we are willing to let Him draw us closer to Him. The issue is trust and God is eager to prove to us that He can be trusted in spite of all the lies of the enemy and the lies filling our own hearts based on previous experiences with Fathers or even with parent figures. If we are willing to give Him a chance to prove Himself trustworthy He will do that in such a way as to heal all the damage done and to restore into our souls the ability and capacity to live in intimate fellowship with a Father like we have never experienced before.