Not far into John's Gospel, Jesus is gaining enemies at every turn.  He uses a whip to drive men and livestock out of the temple.  He chooses the holy Sabbath to heal a man who cannot walk.  But it is because of his words that they seek all the more to kill him.  To their anger over the Sabbath healing, Jesus simply replies, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working" (John 5:17).   

To the person well-versed in biting comebacks and fatal rhetoric, these words don't seem at all like fighting-words.  But to Jews who knew a history of combating (and failing to combat) the polytheistic influences of surrounding nations, Jesus uttered what seemed the most blasphemous notion possible.  He was calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. 

Even so, the notion of God as Father was not a new concept.  Even to the Jews who took offense at Jesus's words that day, God was understood as Father in the sense that God is creator, that God is Lord, that God is protector and forgiver.  Fourteen times in the Old Testament God is spoken of as Father, and each instance depicts a sacred glimpse of divine fatherhood. 

But here, Jesus adds to the notion of Father a distinct element of intimacy and uniqueness with himself.  Nowhere in Palestinian Judaism is God addressed by an individual as "my father."(1)  Jesus's use of such an title—and elsewhere the familiar "abba" or daddy—reveals the very basis of his communion with God, a communion he boldly offers his followers:  "This, then, is how you should pray:

For the Christian familiar with the Trinity, it might be rather easy to approach the extraordinary mystery that Christ is Son and God is Father.  "Heavenly Father" and "only Son" are phrases with which I rarely wrestle.  All too often I overlook the vast allowance of being able to call God my own Father.  It is not a quality inherent in other religions (it is, in fact, an obstruction to some, an enigma to others).  The Christian confidence that you and I can approach God as Father is the unique and pressing gift of the Son.

I was moved recently by the profundity of this gift as I listened to the stories of a man named K.K. Devaraj.  Reverend Deveraj works among the discarded lives of Mumbai, India.  For nearly 20 years, the ministry he founded has fostered life-saving outreach to orphaned children, drug addicts, and prostitutes.  To each one he offers the same message as many times as necessary:  "Whenever you are ready, your Father's house is waiting."  Often, he offers for years.

Such is the startling, radical message of Christ.  There is a Father who knows you by name, in whose house you are invited to be who you are—to live and work and play as He created you.  "In my Father's house are many rooms," said Jesus, "if it were not so, I would have told you.  I am going there to prepare a place for you" (John 14:20).  What if there is indeed a Father who waits, who longs to gather his children together and take them into his arms?  Some will be transformed, some will be broken, some will not be gathered in this life.  But God offers us a place, positioned within the greater offer of adoption.  He is our Father whose name is hallowed and whose kingdom we seek, whom we know through the Son and worship as children.  He is called Abba.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of In

Not far into John's Gospel, Jesus is gaining enemies at every turn.  He uses a whip to drive men and livestock out of the temple.  He chooses the holy Sabbath to heal a man who cannot walk.  But it is because of his words that they seek all the more to kill him.  To their anger over the Sabbath healing, Jesus simply replies, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working" (John 5:17).   

To the person well-versed in biting comebacks and fatal rhetoric, these words don't seem at all like fighting-words.  But to Jews who knew a history of combating (and failing to combat) the polytheistic influences of surrounding nations, Jesus uttered what seemed the most blasphemous notion possible.  He was calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. 

Even so, the notion of God as Father was not a new concept.  Even to the Jews who took offense at Jesus's words that day, God was understood as Father in the sense that God is creator, that God is Lord, that God is protector and forgiver.  Fourteen times in the Old Testament God is spoken of as Father, and each instance depicts a sacred glimpse of divine fatherhood. 

But here, Jesus adds to the notion of Father a distinct element of intimacy and uniqueness with himself.  Nowhere in Palestinian Judaism is God addressed by an individual as "my father."(1)  Jesus's use of such an title—and elsewhere the familiar "abba" or daddy—reveals the very basis of his communion with God, a communion he boldly offers his followers:  "This, then, is how you should pray:

For the Christian familiar with the Trinity, it might be rather easy to approach the extraordinary mystery that Christ is Son and God is Father.  "Heavenly Father" and "only Son" are phrases with which I rarely wrestle.  All too often I overlook the vast allowance of being able to call God my own Father.  It is not a quality inherent in other religions (it is, in fact, an obstruction to some, an enigma to others).  The Christian confidence that you and I can approach God as Father is the unique and pressing gift of the Son.

I was moved recently by the profundity of this gift as I listened to the stories of a man named K.K. Devaraj.  Reverend Deveraj works among the discarded lives of Mumbai, India.  For nearly 20 years, the ministry he founded has fostered life-saving outreach to orphaned children, drug addicts, and prostitutes.  To each one he offers the same message as many times as necessary:  "Whenever you are ready, your Father's house is waiting."  Often, he offers for years.

Such is the startling, radical message of Christ.  There is a Father who knows you by name, in whose house you are invited to be who you are—to live and work and play as He created you.  "In my Father's house are many rooms," said Jesus, "if it were not so, I would have told you.  I am going there to prepare a place for you" (John 14:20).  What if there is indeed a Father who waits, who longs to gather his children together and take them into his arms?  Some will be transformed, some will be broken, some will not be gathered in this life.  But God offers us a place, positioned within the greater offer of adoption.  He is our Father whose name is hallowed and whose kingdom we seek, whom we know through the Son and worship as children.  He is called Abba.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

finity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.