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   The language spoken by our Lord was Aramaic, a northeastern Semitic tongue still spoken in a few small villages in Syria. But the books of the New Testament, including all four gospels, were written in Greek, which was the lingua franca of the Roman Empire. Scholars who confidently assert what Jesus did or did not say need to be reminded that his sayings have not come down to us in the language in which they were originally spoken.

But despite the fact that the New Testament is written entirely in Greek, it has preserved a few Aramaic words and phrases: the words spoken by Jesus by Jairus’ daughter: talitha cumi, “little girl, arise” (Mark 5:41); Psalm 22:1, uttered by Jesus on the cross: eli, eli, lema shebaqtani, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34); the early Christian prayer, maranatha (1 Corinthians 16:22), which can mean either “Our Lord is coming” or “Come, our Lord!”; and, finally, the word “Abba” used in today’s epistle.

This word occurs in Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane (Mark 14:36), and the Greek equivalent is found in the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:2), in Jesus’ cry of exaltation (Luke 10:21 par), and in one of Jesus’ words on the cross (Luke 23:46).
The word “Abba” is an intimate form of address, roughly equivalent to English “Daddy,” and it is a precious indication of Jesus’ experience of God. It reflects the profound trust expressed in Jesus’ response to an anxious question from his disciples: “All things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27).

Jesus responded to external events, including the failure of his mission and his terrible death, with a deepened understanding of God’s will for him, which he accepted with a trust based on love.

Paul’s use of “Abba” in writing to the Romans, as well as to the Galatians (4:6), shows us that Jesus’ way of praying was continued within the early Christian community. To be sure, Jesus’ sonship is unique. Although he teaches his disciples to call God “Father,” he does not include himself with them when they pray “Our Father” (Matthew 6:9). Rather, after his resurrection, Jesus instructs Mary Magdalene to tell the disciples, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father” (John 20:17)—not “to our Father.” So if we are sons and daughters of God, it is because we are “sons in the Son,” as St. Augustine has so beautifully expressed it.

And when we cry “Abba! Father!”, we do so through “the spirit of sonship” (Romans 8:15), which we have received. As Paul instructs the Romans, “it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ (vv. 16-17)
So let us bear all this in mind when, later in the service, we pray in the words our Saviour taught us, “Our Father.”

July 17, 2005

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