Our Father: Pt I

I. THE DECLARATION

First off, let me say that we must move beyond the sentimentality (or for some, the struggle) invoked by thinking of God as “Father” literally. Wright and others have noted the popularity of making more of the reference of abba as “daddy” than is necessary. True, we do serve a relational God, but He presents Himself as Father because we can “get that” and it helps us to get to a deeper layer of meaning. He relates to us, at times, in terms we can understand. However, we must beware of the temptation of attempting to bring God down to our level when what we intended to do was bring him nearer (think Lewis’ “senile grandfather” analogy). God is immense, far “bigger” than we could ever realize.

“[The Our Father] contains within it not just intimacy, but revolution. Not just familiarity; hope” (Wright, p.15). The first time God is referred to as “Father” is in the Exodus from Israel ( Ex 4:22-23) where He is calling slaves to be sons. When the Jew said “Our Father” they were coalescing their calling as an elect people and their testament of their deliverance from Egypt (Wright, p.14f). When we as Christians make this proclamation, we are stating recalling our adoption and our own Exodus from Egypt (the land of slavery/sin). The Jews were saved from slavery through Moses; and by this I mean Moses was the tool used of God. As Christians we were saved from slavery (think Galatians) by Jesus; and by this I mean by God Himself. Moses marched into Pharaoh’s court and said, “God says, let my people go!” Jesus stepped into this world and said, “You are free.” This call was for the Jew first and then for the Gentile (Rom 1:16).

It was true that Israel had been set free from Egypt, although they had been repeatedly enslaved over the centuries by other nations, but the declaration of freedom was not from the Romans, but from themselves and from the Devil (we will cover this more in the Kingdom Come next week). The people had a hope that was persistently frustrated by their circumstance. They were not able to see the work of God in their midst; not because it defied their expectations but because it did not meet them!

While religious Jews fasted in repentance, Jesus feasted. Jesus acted like the Kingdom had already come, and it had (more on that later). For the first hearers, and for us today, to say “Our Father” is a declaration that we have been freed from slavery by the very hand of God moving both in history and in human hearts. Once we have made this declaration, we can enter into an anticipation and the Our Father takes on even greater meaning.