Our Father

This week I am beginning a new series of blogs on the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6.9-13; Luke 11.2-4).  Jesus taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer as a pattern of prayer. It is the Lord’s prayer in the sense that he taught it, not because he prayed it. We cannot imagine Jesus, who showed no consciousness of sin, praying to be forgiven. It is a corporate prayer and therefore the whole prayer is phrased in the plural. It is the prayer of a community rather than an individual act of devotion. As R.T. France remarked, “even though its pattern would also appropriately guide the secret prayers” of individual Christians. I find it of interest that in the early church this prayer was treated as top-secret. It was only after people were baptised that they were taught the Lord’s Prayer. According to the Didache, written around the beginning of the second century AD, it encouraged Christians to say the Lord’s prayer three times a day. Now, of course, the Lord’s Prayer is known not just by Christians but also to many who do not go to church. In most churches the Lord’s Prayer is said every Sunday, and rightly so.

We begin with the opening words of the Lord’s Prayer. According to Matthew, Jesus taught his disciples to say, “Our Father in heaven” (Matthew 6.9). But according to Luke, Jesus taught his disciples to say “Father”. Almost certainly, Luke reflects what Jesus actually said. As James Edwards points out, “this direct, unadorned, even daring address, is unique to Jesus”. For Jews normally did not refer to God without adding the word “heavenly”. In the Old Testament there are four places (Exodus 4.22; Deuteronomy 32.6; Jeremiah 31.9; Malachi 2.10), where God was addressed as “Father”, but only as the Father of the nation rather than of an individual. By contrast as T.W. Manson observed, “The experience of God as Father dominates the whole ministry of Jesus from the Baptism to the Crucifixion”. Jesus, of course, spoke in Aramaic – and not in Greek – to his disciples. The word Jesus used of God was abba. According to the early Church Fathers Chrysostom, Theodore and Theodoret, abba was the word used by a small child when addressing his father, and in English we could translate it as ‘father dear’. However, the term abba was also used by older people. It is a word of love and affection. Abba denotes an intimate relationship with God, which Jesus knew; and amazingly we too may experience something of that intimacy. In the prayers of Judaism this address to God is not found. Indeed, this was so unusual that in Mark 14.36, Romans 8.15 and Galatians 4.6, abba appears. In Mark 14.36 this is the word on the lips of Jesus as he prays to his Father in the Garden of Gethsemane; in Romans 8.13, 14 Paul wrote, “when we cry ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God”. Similarly in Galatians 4.6 Paul wrote, “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba! Father!’”.

For me the opening words of the Lord’s Prayer played a key role in my becoming a Christian. One winter Sunday evening when I was eight years old I went with my father to Erith Baptist church in South London. My father took as his text the first two words of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father”, and as he preached I became aware that I needed to personalise that prayer to enter into a true relationship with God as my Father. On returning home I told my parents that I wanted to commit my life to Jesus. I knelt down in our living room and asked Jesus to come into my life as my Lord and Saviour. It wasn’t a dramatic ‘Damascus Road’ conversion. After all, I had been brought up in a Christian home and had always loved the Lord Jesus. Nonetheless I needed to make this formal commitment – this was a key turning point in my life.

One comment

  1. It’s interesting that you had the sense of wanting/needing to commit at such a young age. I think we often underestimate a child’s ability to grasp the faith and there is a strong movement within the meditating community to teach meditation to children with the understanding that we have also to learn from them -especially an unspoilt sense of wonder.

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