Everlasting Father

<p>“His Name shall be called … Everlasting Father”. Isaiah 9:6</p><p>This one has me stumped.  Why would you call a baby “Everlasting Father”? Son, brother, or uncle might be a better description.  I have some ideas rambling through my mind, but this particular prophecy has captured my imagination this Christmas season. It is a most amazing prophecy concerning Jesus’ names 750 years before he was born. A very powerful declaration of the uniqueness of the coming Messiah.</p><p>Something else has captured my imagination as well.  I was gathering up our Christmas albums to play some Christmas music while decorating our home for the season (Jan is always so creative in making our home “gemütlich” – cozy this time of year!) when I came across a cd labeled: Christmas 1969. I had no recollection of it, so Jan suggested I play it and find out what was on it.  The first sounds I recognized immediately as the Bells of Bethlehem, something as a boy I often experience as we spent our Christmases in Jerusalem.  </p><p>During Christmas 1969 I was in my freshman year at college, and met up with my sisters during the Christmas break.  Our parents were still in Beirut, Lebanon, and sent us a tape they had recorded for us. Somehow it had been saved to a cd, and I found myself listening to my mother’s voice for the first time since she had died in 1976, and my fathers voice since he died in 1990.  I was reliving memories from over 53 years ago: memories of special experiences as a child shared with family growing up in the Middle East. From my baptism in the Jordan River to walking in the places Jesus had walked, our parents had given us a very special childhood.  It was a foundation that would directly impact the rest of my life.  I can see how from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth I have gone sharing about Jesus wherever I went. Seeing people from all walks of life turning from sin to a savior, breaking the devil’s chains, and being set free to forgive and to be forgiven.  Family is important and key to the growth of individual