Excerpt from Luke 1:5-25

"Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard.  Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John.  You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord"

Reflection by Quinn G. Caldwell

Much is made of motherhood during Advent, as well it should be.  But too often, Joseph recedes into the background, and Zechariah, who like Mary receives the annunciation of his special kid's birth, hardly gets mentioned at all.  So I always try to remind myself to think about the dads in this story.  Those of us with good fathers, even flawed good fathers, know how important good fathering is.  Those of us without good fathers know the same thing, but have learned it in a much harder way.

I sometimes hear from people that they cannot refer to God as Father; they've experienced things with their human fathers that will not let them believe that a good God could be anything like them.  So don't you think Joseph must have been a great dad?  I mean, Jesus referred to God as Father more frequently than almost anything else, even going so far as to call God Abba, or "Daddy," on the cross.  Don't you think Joseph must have been really extraordinary for that metaphor to work for Jesus?  Don't you think Zechariah must have been something special to raise a kid like John?  Don't you think the world needs as many good fathers in it as it can get?

Don't you think you ought to get in touch with a good Abba you know today and thank him for it?

Prayer

God, for every good dad you have sent into the world to shape and nurture it, we praise your name.  Amen.

About the Author Quinn G. Caldwell is Associate Minister of Old South Church in Boston, Massachusetts.