Mother’s Day: Two scenes from a movie try to capture what the day to day relationship was between Jesus and his mother. They are touching scenes, one heartbreaking, but both underscore the power of a mother’s love that is the closest we will come to the love of our Father in this life. If mother’s love is closest to the Father’s love and the Father’s love is arguably the most important thing we can learn in our spiritual formation, then why do we refer to God as Father? Where’s mother? Looking at how the Hebrews understood their God as coded into their very language, we find that though God is referred to in the masculine, he is often portrayed as feminine by the prophets. The Hebrew words for spirit and kingdom are both feminine—and wisdom, a main attribute of God, is personified as female in Proverbs. How can God be both mother and father at same time?
Mother’s Day: Two scenes from a movie try to capture what the day to day relationship was between Jesus and his mother. They are touching scenes, one heartbreaking, but both underscore the power of a mother’s love that is the closest we will come to the love of our Father in this life. If mother’s love is closest to the Father’s love and the Father’s love is arguably the most important thing we can learn in our spiritual formation, then why do we refer to God as Father? Where’s mother? Looking at how the Hebrews understood their God as coded into their very language, we find that though God is referred to in the masculine, he is often portrayed as feminine by the prophets. The Hebrew words for spirit and kingdom are both feminine—and wisdom, a main attribute of God, is personified as female in Proverbs. How can God be both mother and father at same time?