Dear children of our heavenly Father,
Next Sunday (June 17) is Father’s Day in the U.S. and elsewhere. This holiday celebrates one of the most influential roles any man can have – that of father.
What comes to mind when you hear the word father? Perhaps you think of your human father with positive thoughts like strength, leadership, security, friendship and love. However, for some the word father brings negative thoughts because their human fathers did not live up to the high calling and responsibilities of fatherhood. They may have to learn later in life what it is like to have a loving father as they come to know the first person of the Trinity, revealed to us by Jesus as the Father.
Most languages have diminutive (baby talk) words to speak affectionately of fathers. In English we have dad, daddy and papa. Sometimes it is said that Jesus used a baby talk word in speaking of God as abba. Though in modern times this Aramaic word is used in the diminutive sense, it was simply another word for father in Jesus’ day. Each of the three occurrences of αββα in the New Testament is followed by the Greek equivalent πατερ, which simply means father. There were diminutive words for father (such as pappas) that Jesus could have used, but did not.
Nevertheless, it is significant that Jesus called God father and abba. Though God is referred to as father 14 times in the Old Testament, when Jesus addressed God as his own Father, he was accused of blasphemy. On one occasion, when Jesus was accused of Sabbath-breaking because of healing people on Saturday, he replied, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too, am working” (John 5:17). The Jewish leaders missed the point of the miraculous healing and who those miracles identified him to be. They only heard more blasphemy. They were even more outraged when Jesus taught his followers to pray to God as their Father in Matthew 6:9. Just who did this Jesus think he was?
Indeed, if Jesus was not who he said he was, he would have been guilty of blasphemy. But Jesus knew who he was, and he knew exactly what he was doing. “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matthew 11:27). Jesus makes known to us his absolutely unique relationship with the Father, one of mutual knowing as Son of the Father. He also reveals that he can let us into that relationship of personal knowing by sharing with us his inner knowledge as the unique Son of God the Father.
When one of his disciples asked him in John 14:8, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us,” he responded by telling them that he was the representation of the Father; whoever had seen him had seen in him the Father (verses 9-14).
Jesus gives us amazing insight into his relationship with his heavenly Father especially as we listen to his prayer found in John 17. From all eternity they have shared love, glory and a oneness. But more than this, we discover that the Son intends to share with us all that the Father has shared with him! So in John 15 Jesus says: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (vv. 13-15).
Jesus revealed the astounding truth that God is not a remote taskmaster or slave driver demanding respect and obedience (or else!). Nothing could be further from the truth! Jesus revealed God as the Father who thinks of us as his children. Jesus has included us in his relationship with the Father – a relationship of love and acceptance that God intends we enjoy forever. Indeed, the Father has a place in his kingdom for each of us and it is his “good pleasure” to give it to us (Luke 12:32). That place is our sharing in Jesus’ own sonship with the Father (John 17: 24).
Happy Father’s Day to all who are fathers. Let’s do our best to live up and into all that this title means.
With love in Christ’s service,
Joseph Tkach
P.S. We just completed our annual audit for 2011. It was performed by CapinCrouse LLP, Certified Public Accountants. They specialize in audits for churches and non-profit organizations. Once again, we received an unqualified opinion that our records and practices are free of material misstatement and deficiencies, with no deficiencies in internal controls, and in conformity with accepted accounting practices. My thanks to Mat Morgan and Robert Meade who were both complimented by this outside audit firm.
