Reflecting on Men and Fatherhood
Speaker Notes
John’s First Letter 2:12-13
12 I am writing to you, dear children,
because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.
13 I am writing to you, fathers,
because you know him who is from the beginning.
I am writing to you, young men,
because you have overcome the evil one.
Revelation 1:9-20
John’s Vision of Christ
9 I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. 10 On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, 11 which said: “Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.”
12 I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. 14 The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. 15 His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword.His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.
17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. 18 I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.
19 “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later. 20 The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
John’s First Letter 2:1-2
2.1 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
Charles Peguy writes on Fatherhood (in “Portal of the Mystery of Hope”):
It’s never the child who goes to the field,
who tills and who sows, and who reaps
and who harvests the grapes and who
trims the vine and who fells the trees
and who cuts the wood.
For winter.
To warm the house in winter.
But would the father have the heart
to work if he didn’t have his children.
If it weren’t for the sake of his
children.
His children will do better than he,
of course. And the world will go
better. Later. He’s not jealous of it.
On the contrary.
Nor for having come to the world, as he
did, in an ungrateful time.
And to have no doubt prepared for his
sons a time that is perhaps less
ungrateful.
What madman would be jealous of his
sons and of the sons of his sons.
Doesn’t he work solely for his children.1
1 Charles Péguy, The Portal of the Mystery of Hope, trans. David Louis Schindler, Jr. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1996), pp. 12, 18.
David is a Theologian and Ethicist.