The Everlasting

One of my absolute favourite movies is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Not that piffy new one but the amazing one with Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. They did so much more in the first one, they went through that crazy bubble machine, it was golden eggs not possessed squirrels checking nuts, and the grampa joe was so much better that a comparison is not even necessary.

So you can imagine my pleasant surprise when I was watching TV and came across the classic version. As I watching it again I couldn't help but thinking about those everlasting gob stoppers. They sound like the coolest thing ever, never minding the fact that they look like miniature koosh balls (a huge plus in my books). Maybe it was time of night (late...) or was because I was chewing a now flavourless piece of gum but those gob stoppers looked crazy tempting. I could really understand why the bad guy (Slugworth?) was trying to get a hold of one. Gum that never goes bad? Never stops work? Never loses its appeal? Who wouldn't buy it?

Why? Because it's everlasting. I mean, all it takes is one and the problem is solved. Imagine if you slapped the "Everlasting" title and any number of products today. Everlasting jeans: jeans that never fade or rip, everlasting batteries: one change and then never again, everlasting ice cream: enjoy...

What about slapping on the everlasting to the concept of father? Everlasting father? I was reading Isaiah 9 recently and was really struck again with the title of Christ "Everlasting Father". I think sometimes it gets lost in the shuffle of all of the other absolutely ridiculously cool titles Jesus gets in the verse. Why is it so important? Of course God is everlasting, I mean, you don't run out of God, right? By the very nature of God, it means that he doesn't grow old and die, that he lasts forever. So why the need to place everlasting father in there?

I actually love this the most, this concept of God's everlasting fatherhood. It is probably the most real picture of God for us today. Lets take it in reverse:

Father: Often times people are so hostile to the gospel, to Christ, to this believed impersonal God standing on high proscribing does and don'ts. Yet the picture presented here is of an incredibly personal God. Its a tradition in my house at University to write our favorite verses on our living room wall. My new housemate this year chose Psalm 68:5 "God is the father to the fatherless and protector of the widow, is God in his holy living." I could not remember having heard this before and was struck by the personalness of the verse. That God's very dwelling is in his identity as a father. The dangerous thing about this comparison is that to large segments of the population, the father does not reflect a positive image. While the father is meant to guide, protect, comfort, and sacrifice for his child, the image we most often see is the broken and failed system of fatherhood all to common in today's world. Sadly, at best fathers are still not perfect and fail either by direct pain or the indirect inability to retain a constant vigil while at worst fathers have become the ultimate villain in our world. So why invoke a picture of the father?

Everlasting: So have you caught my all to evident illustration in the beginning as to the importance of everlasting? To everlast means to never fail, to never stop, to never go bad. This is the part that is absolutely awesome about this illustration. Everlasting and Father fit together perfectly. The very deficiencies of fatherhood are solved. God is the everlasting father in that he is the personal protector, comforter, and guardian of his child and he never fails, stops, or stands in ignorance to our needs.

So what does this mean? Why even write? Every year I can't help but notice the students around me desperatly searching for the everlasting and the personal. The manner and the means of which they fill this void only deepens my sorrow. At best they fill it with friendship, school work, and community service. The Christian community is not suddenly immune from this either; so eager to fill the void with empty religious ministry while standing on the verge of actually knowing God. So often we trade in an actual relational, vibrant, passionate following of Christ with ministry; an esstential need in the church but, as Christ told Martha in Luke 10:41, are not neccary when compared with the primacy of Christ. We flee from one solution to the other hoping to find the everlasting and when it, as all things do, ends we crash. Yet here, in Isaiah 9, we are told that God is the Everlasting Father. That when we turn to him we discover that we not only find something that finally last but actually encouter the one who will never end.