Placentia Presbyterian Church

Before we get started today, let me preface my sermon by saying this sermon was intended to be given last week which was Father’s Day as well as the celebration of the baptism of Oliver Eugene Ernest, but because of an emergency during worship (everything is fine now, Jim is home, and everything looks good) I was unable to give this sermon. So…

Today is Father’s Day. Our scripture lesson today is a pretty familiar passage, but not one you would typically think about when thinking about fathers. It is Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane just before his arrest, crucifixion, and ultimately his resurrection. Usually when we read this passage our focus is on the events during Holy week leading up to Jesus’ death, but this morning we are going to look primarily at v. 36 and focus on one particular word, “Abba.”

The word abba, as most Bibles will inform you in their footnotes, is Aramaic in origin. It comes from the Hebrew word Ab, which means father of an individual; head or founder of a household, group, family or clan; ancestors, grandfather or forefather of a person; original or patron of a class, profession or art, a term of respect and honor; ruler or chief. The father of the Jewish people bore the name Abraham, because God told him “for I have made you a father of many nations” (Gen 17:5). However, the word abba isn’t quite the same as the Hebrew word, ab, and that is part of the reason that it is translated for us using the word father, after it’s used in scripture. But Abba, is more of a word of endearment, literally meaning “My Father,” I have heard it interpreted with a much more intimate translation equivalent to the word “Daddy.”

It is interesting that this word abba is only used three times in the Bible, and all three times it is followed by the translation “Father.” Jesus only uses this word once in referring to God as his father, even though he refers to God as father (pater) constantly throughout his ministry. Paul, too, uses the word abba only twice when referring to God despite his constant reference to God as father as well. This word “abba” is a special endearing word only used in the most intimate and meaningful times and was typically never used in reference to God because it was thought to be to informal and personal, but here in the garden before his death, Jesus calls God, Abba.

I want to switch gears for a minute and use this time that I have to talk about my father. My dad is a good man, not the best, but a good man. I don’t know if anyone would call my dad saintly, but I know God has a special place for him waiting in heaven. If you have ever talked to him you might know that he is the biggest sports fan I have ever met. He reads and memorizes sports almanacs for fun and if you name an event in sports history he can probably give you the run down of it, who won, the score, MVP of the game, some of the key stats, etc. However, if the event was in his life time, you had better be ready to pull up a chair because he will give you play by play description of the event.

Growing up with a father that was such an avid sports fan you might think that he was an athlete himself growing up, but he wasn’t. He stopped playing all organized sports by the time he was in 9th grade. In fact, sometimes while growing up, I thought he was trying to live his sports dreams through me. I say this because I grew up regularly hearing the phrases, “wipe it off and get back out there,” “you can’t play this game if you are afraid,” and “if the bone ain’t showing you’re not hurt.” But the interesting thing is that my dad never made me play sports. Growing up I played soccer, football, baseball, basketball, swam, and took karate lessons, and not one of those sports did my dad ever make me play. However, if I did play a sport he did require two thing of me; the first was once I started a season I was not allowed to quit and that I was to give 100% and nothing less. To this day I have never quit something I have started, and unfortunately when I step on to a competitive field I have a hard time not going 100%. Anyone who has watched our PPC team play softball knows what I am talking about. Not that I am the best, but I personally give my 100%.

Before we get back to our scripture, there is something else I need to mention. I have no bigger fan in the world than my father, except maybe my wife. As I was growing up, my father never missed a game that I played in, not even for work, unless he was coaching my sister’s team, at which time he would have my mom walk back and forth between fields keeping him posted on my game while he was coaching. When I played ball in high school, my dad would always get to the football games early to get a good seat, and go in early to work so he could get off in time to travel to watch me play baseball, where ever it was. I continued playing sports in college. Even when I didn’t play, my parents would show up, with the hope that I might. They even took a week of vacation my senior year to travel with our baseball team on our spring break trip to Florida. In fact, if my parents had the money, there is no doubt in my mind that they would fly here every Sunday that I preach just to hear me.

When I was eleven years old I played baseball on a championship team and we were 14-1. I was the #2 pitcher on the team behind the best pitcher in the league. I batted fifth on our league team that had nine All-Stars on it, of which I was one, and I was one of the better players in the league that year. Unfortunately for me, when All-Stars came around I went from one of the best players in the league, to one of the worst. I still remember that I batted over .600 in league play that year and in All-Stars I was one hit for twenty-four at bats (.041) and to add insult to injury I had 17 strikeouts. By the time All-Stars ended, I had lost it and no one had an answer for me as to how I could get it back.

After that season I almost hung up my cleats. Again I was eleven, but after talking with my dad I didn’t quit, but I wanted to assure myself that I would never have a year like that again. So that winter my dad and I started training. For those who might be guests, I grew up in Indiana, with snow. My dad and I would bundle up, go outside, scrape off the snow from a homemade batter’s box and my dad would pitch whiffle balls with black tape on them, so I could see them, every day for 100 hits. There were days when it would take 20 minutes and other days it would take 2 hours, partly because we would have to keep going inside to get warm before heading back out. I gave 100% to training that year, and my dad gave me 100%.

I share this with you today, again not to try to make my dad into a saint or to make him into something he is not, but to illustrate a father’s love. Despite whatever my dad said or did, no matter how unfair I thought his rules might be, I look back as a father now myself and see that it was all out of his love for me. Until last year when I had, well my wife had our son, I never fully understood the meaning of a “father’s love,” but now I have an idea.

The night that Jesus was betrayed and crucified, he went to the garden of Gethsemane to pray. His prayer that night wasn’t to a father who was distant who didn’t care about him, who had abandoned him during his darkest hours. His prayer was to abba, daddy, his father, a father who loved him much more than my father loved me. Despite what Jesus knew was ahead of him, despite asking his Father to take the cup from him if it was in His will and not taking it, God was still daddy to Jesus and Jesus knew how much his abba loved him.

This leads us to the other two verses that use the word abba, Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6. Both of these verses tell us that, we have been adopted into the family of God through Christ, that we are no longer slaves but children of God and His rightful heirs. Adoption today is something that isn’t that uncommon, but in Biblical times it was much rarer. A parent had to disown their child three times and the adoptive parents had to accept the child three times before it became legal. There wasn’t as much red tape as there is now, but the rules were much more stringent than they are today. To be adopted meant that you gave up all of your entitlements of your old family, your old life was wiped out, and that you would have no contact with your birth parents ever again, even if you were adopted at age 10 or 12. But what adoption gave you was full status as a family member of your new family. An adoption could not be broken, even after your parents’ death, and if you adopted a son and then later had a son, your adopted son was still considered your eldest heir, and as the oldest had right to most of the family’s inheritance. There was no distinction by law between an adopted child and child born to you.

Last week we celebrated the baptism of Oliver with his parents, Steve and Julie, handing him over to be adopted into God’s family through Christ. Like those who have been baptized before him, Oliver is now part of a new family, God’s family, and he is no longer simply Oliver Eugene Ernest, but he now bears the name Oliver Eugene Ernest son of the Living God. Through Christ and our baptism, Romans 8:15-17 tells us that we become heirs to God and co-heirs to Christ. Everything that God the Father has to give is bestowed on us as rightful heirs to His kingdom. Adoption into the family of God, transforms God the Father, into Abba, our father or daddy. A distant father figure who some view as mostly about punishment, becomes a daddy who hurts with us, suffers with us, and does His best to take care of us and loves us so dearly.

I want to close with a quote I read. It said, “If we can call God Abba, Father, everything becomes bearable. Time and again [there] will [be things that] we will not understand, but always we can be certain that ‘The Father’s hand will never cause His child a needless tear.’” Jesus knew this as he prayed out to abba on the night that he was betrayed and that is why he was able to continue towards the cross for us. The same is true for us. If we accept our place as an heir in the family of God, Abba will always be there for us to pick us up when we fall, to lift us up when we come up short, to be there for us during our roughest, darkest times, and to simply love us despite all of our flaws and shortcomings as only our Abba can do. Last week was Father’s Day, a day set apart to celebrate our Fathers, but let’s not just make it one day, make everyday Father’s Day, giving praise and glory to our Father in Heaven for the love and sacrifice that He has given to us. Amen.