Why Does Father's Day Hurt So Much? #036
This past Father’s Day was my first one. It was also the first one my wife had without her dad. Our celebration wasn’t muted, but it felt conflicted. And during the day I only had to spend 2-3 minutes on my social media feed to see that our family wasn’t the only family experiencing a fatherless Father’s Day. A lot of my friends seemed to as well. Losing your father to death is clearly one reason Father’s Day hurts so many. It’s another day (as if there is not one) seemingly built to remind one of the loss they have suffered. And I imagine many go through the same thing with Mother’s Day as well. However, something else seems to be going on during Father’s Day. I don’t see the same type of posts during Mother’s Day as I do during Father’s Day? Father’s Day seems to be more conflicted, more challenging, and more remorseful?
Why?
Fatherless Generation
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, children who grow up with involved fathers are: 39% more likely to earn mostly A’s in school, 45% less likely to repeat a grade, 60% less likely to be suspended or expelled from school, twice as likely to go to college and find stable employment after high school, 75% less likely to have a teen birth, and 80% less likely to spend time in jail. (Source)
The stats don’t stop there: “According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18.4 million children, 1 in 4, live without a biological, step, or adoptive father in the home. That’s enough children to fill New York City twice or Los Angeles four times over.” (Source)
These latest numbers are devastating. We see the positive impact in the first set of numbers and then we see that a quarter of children don’t even have that chance. This plays out in my social media feed every Father’s Day. It plays out in pop culture, it plays out in schools, and it plays out across the entire West. We have a Fatherless generation.
A Theological Problem
When Jesus began His preaching ministry, one constant battle with the religious leaders of His day was His identifying God as His Father:
”This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father (emphasis mine), making himself equal with God.” John 5:18 ESV
John records the religious teachers were so enraged by teaching God was His Father that they attempted to kill Jesus because He was claiming equality with God and committing blasphemy. The religious teachers claimed to be children of Abraham out of an appeal to piety, but that is quickly shattered when, ironically, in their rage, they also claimed God as their Father in John 8:41. The very same heresy they condemned Jesus for.
It’s in John chapter 8 that we get to a huge theological problem. After constant arguing and theological debates about family, Jesus finally tells the religious teachers they are not children of God or even children of Abraham - they are children of Satan:
[43] Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. [44] You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. [45] But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. [46] Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? [47] Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” (ESV)
According to Jesus, Satan is committed to imitating being a father and doing everything possible to corrupt one’s understanding of fatherhood. He parades himself as a good, good father but Christ makes clear this is impossible because his nature is to lie. And when I read the stats I listed above I see the handiwork, not of a loving Father, but of the father of lies. It’s no wonder that Father’s Day hurts for so many - not because Dad’s are Satan (although I’m sure some would argue otherwise), but because Satan is invested in corrupting and maligning the very idea of Fatherhood. Why? Because it makes it harder to see God as Father which then makes it impossible to see God as Redeemer.
The hurt on Father’s Day is many different things, but at the root is a theological battle attempting to corrupt, lie, and steal the idea of a Good Father. Because when you corrupt the idea of Father you block from knowing God as Redeemer:
“You are our Father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from old is your name.” Isaiah 63:16-17
May those of us who are fathers allow the Holy Spirit to continue to protect our fatherhood so that our relationship is not an introduction to the false fatherhood of the enemy. Because when our kid sees the descriptor of God as Father in scripture, the word picture they will see is our face.