Abba

                     Luke 15: 20-23, Galatians 3: 29-4: 7

 

 

          Behind my house, the air handler for the cooling system sits on a concrete slab. If you look closely at that slab, you will see handprints, the handprints of my children. If you were to look behind the door to my personal office, you would find photocopies of little hands and pictures of my children when they were very young. Same thing on our refrigerator. These places are a chronology of love moments and remembrances in my life as a father.

                    These days, my children are grown. They come home occasionally. They call or skype or email. Every time they contact me, I have to concentrate on letting them be who they are. You see, for me, they are not just who they are…they are also who they were. It may be a 33 year old on the phone, but for me, he is also 23 and 13 and even 3. In some mysterious way, I see each child in a continuum over the broadband of time. No matter how deep the voice or how experienced they come across, I see them as toddlers and children and adolescents even as they talk to me as adults. I find myself littered with all that history, even in the middle of a contemporary conversation.

          I think God sees us that way. In the gospel of Luke, the prodigal son returns home, having squandered his inheritance on loose living. He looks a wreck. But when his father sees him, even from afar, he doesn’t wait for the explanations or the apologies. He calls for the best clothing and a ring and shoes and orders not a meal, but a feast! For the loving father looks up that road and sees not a problem or a beggar, but his son. His eyes may identify the change in appearance, but the eyes of his heart see someone different, and he cries out in love and acceptance. That’s the way God sees us. He looks beyond the sin to see that bond between him and us. He sees us as he made us and as we can be, not just as who we are. God sees not only the imperfection of what stands before him, but also the perfection of his creation; he sees his children.

          My favorite word in all this beautiful language is Daddy. When my son grew up, he shortened it to Dad. Curiously, all three daughters still say Daddy. I love to hear it. It’s a term of endearment, of love. It’s who I am to them. Paul talked about this same feeling with the people of the Galatian church. He reminded them that God sent his only son Jesus to redeem us, so that we could be adopted as God’s own children. Adoption then and adoption now carry the same identifying marks. Once you are adopted, you are part of the family. You are the same as blood kin.

Thanks to Jesus, that’s the relationship available to us with God. We who believe now stand beside Jesus himself as the family of God, his adopted sons and daughters. So much does God love us that, in the words of Paul, he “sent us the Spirit of his Son into our hearts.” That’s right! Believe it. The Spirit of God’s Son lives within our hearts.

          When you think about your relationship with your father, or your relationship with your child or children, that’s not so hard to believe, is it? Don’t we fathers send our spirit into our children? Don’t we sons and daughters carry the seeds of our fathers’ love wherever we go?

          It’s the same with Jesus. God sent his Spirit into us. It goes with us, advises us, cares for us. We are adopted. We are family! We are full heirs to our Father’s kingdom. Paul thought it so loving, so endearing, that he compared the relationship to the sweetness one feels when calling out to Daddy, for that is what “Abba” means in Aramaic.

How long does it take for you to love your child? For me, it was love at first sight not once, but four times. I always marveled that my heart could grow to accommodate more children. I first thought that I would have to reclaim a little bit of my heart for each child, but that’s not the way it works. Your heart just grows. There is no limit. It grows to surround each child we are given. But even that is nothing compared to God. He loved us before we were ever even a thought in the minds of our earthly fathers.

          Yes, it is wonderful being a father. We have been given that gift, that privilege, by God as part of the relational revelation that teaches us about the kingdom of God and our relationship with our heavenly Father. We are fathers, mothers, sons, daughters. Each relationship carries with it a very personal stamp, a footprint that teaches us about love and life and family. It also teaches us about God.

Perhaps the greatest feeling of all is the knowledge that we too, at every age, are still defined by God as children. We who believe are invited to come close, to let down our defenses, to call him Abba…daddy.  He is there. He is always there. And he is our Father, today, tomorrow…and forever.