I was such a Daddy’s girl! I had forgotten how much of one until I started working on a scrapbook for my dad for Christmas. I have laughed and cried as I have gone through stacks of pictures, remembering so many good times, and bad. From the week I came home from the hospital, to the day he left me at college for the first time, to the day I started my first job, my dad has been such an important part of my life, shaping me, influencing me, teaching me, and showing me how to be a decent and responsible human being.
As I read Adam Hamilton’s chapter for this week in the Advent study, I was reminded just how much our dads impact our lives. He writes, “Fathers play an enormous role in shaping our lives. For some of us, that role is powerful, positive, and beautiful; for others, it may have been difficult and painful. However, our fathers shaped us, we are their children in ways we may not fully realize.” Adam asked his Facebook friends to share how they had been shaped by their fathers, and he got lots of wonderful answers. Among them were several that I related to:
My dad taught me by word and example to never stop learning …
My dad embodied compassion. He taught me and modeled for me what it means to truly care for and love others.
My dad taught me honesty and integrity – he did it by example.
I was thinking about all the things my dad taught me, and about the kinds of things we used to do together when I was growing up. My dad spent Saturdays working in the yard or doing other chores around the house. I learned how to mow the lawn and trim the bushes and take care of the flowerbeds. And he showed me how to repair a toilet that was running on and on and on. But the best times were when we spent time in the garage working with wood.
My dad had a tabletop circular saw and a whole cabinet full of tools, which he taught me how to use and take care of. When we added on a two-car garage to our house, he did all the work inside it, building the storage room with its shelves, the area where we stored our bikes and yard toys, and a second area for storing the yard furniture in the winter. Whenever he was out there hammering and sawing, I was right there, too. At first, my dad just gave me his scrap lumber and I built boats to float down the creek behind our house or some other small objects. But later he helped me build bookcases and a night stand which I still use in my bedroom. There is something deeply satisfying about the smell of wood, and a pile of sawdust on the ground, and being able to draw a project and then carry out its creation. I learned so many valuable lessons out there in the garage with the man who most shaped my life. And I can understand why God might choose a carpenter to be the earthly father of his Son.
But let’s think a little more in detail about that. Why did God choose Joseph for this incredibly important task? Why would God entrust his only Son to the care of this man, among all the men on earth? Why Joseph?
As a humble man of faith, Joseph had a heart for God. It is clear that he trusted God immensely, because when God asked him to take on this responsibility, Joseph did not hesitate to agree. Can you imagine how much courage and faith that took? Would you want to be the parent of God’s child? Joseph took on the greatest challenge I can imagine.
As a man who worked with his hands, who knew the meaning of a hard day’s work, who had to be disciplined and responsible, who depended on his good reputation for his livelihood, Joseph was also uniquely qualified to be the father of Jesus. He could teach Jesus about being honest and fair with people, about treating other people the way you want them to treat you. He would have taught Jesus to measure twice and cut once, as my dad used to say, to be sure about what you are doing so that you don’t waste the wood. It may have taught him something about taking the measure of a person, too.
Joseph taught Jesus a trade, a means of earning an honest income, and from what we can tell Jesus practiced that trade for the first 29 years of his life, until he left home at age 30 to begin his public ministry. He would have had the responsibility, as the oldest son, of providing for his mother and other family after Joseph died, probably while Jesus was young. The last time we hear of Joseph in the gospels was when Jesus was twelve years old. Jesus knew what it meant to be responsible for the welfare of others. And he would have taught his younger brothers how to provide for their families as carpenters.
In his book, Adam Hamilton refers to research by a New York University psychologist named Paul Vitz, about how our relationship with our fathers is connected to how we understand God. Hamilton writes, “This makes sense … Our relationship with our dad has something to do with how we picture God. If we have a healthy, loving relationship with our earthly father, then it’s easier to have a good relationship with God.” Maybe Jesus learned something about God through his relationship with Joseph. Because the name Jesus most often used for God was “Father.” Of all the names used for God throughout the Bible, no one before Jesus ever called God “Father.” And he didn’t use the formal word for “Father,” he used the word, “Abba,” which would translate as “Daddy.”
I have always called my dad “Daddy,” and that reflects the intimate relationship we have. It would never occur to me to refer to him as “Father.” He is not just the man who fathered me, some distant figure in my life. He is my Daddy, the man who held my hand when I was scared in the dark, the man who tucked me in bed at night and checked in the closet to make sure there were no monsters in there. He was the man who taught me how to fish, and put the worm on the hook for me, the man who made me feel safe and loved and protected. My Daddy was my friend. And that is how Jesus felt about Joseph, and that is how he chose to refer to his heavenly Father: “Daddy.”
Why Joseph? Because he could be the kind of Daddy that Jesus needed. Jesus had a hard task to fulfill, and he needed to be prepared for it. It took him 30 years to be ready to begin his ministry, that would eventually lead to his crucifixion. If he had not had the kind of upbringing that Joseph provided, he would not have been able to do what God sent him to this earth to do. What began in a stable in Bethlehem ended on a hill called Calvary, and Joseph had an important role to play in getting Jesus from his birth to his death on the cross. Joseph did what God asked him to do, what God needed him to do. Joseph became Jesus’ earthly father, his daddy. And Jesus was forever shaped by that wonderful man.
