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Gospel Reflection for Wednesday, April 2, 2025
So, basically, the Jewish folks (and we know that in the Gospel of John, ‘the Jewish folks’ doesn’t mean all Jewish people, but their leaders: Pharisees, Sadducees…) are super mad at Jesus because he’s not following the basic rules of being Jewish: he doesn’t respect the Sabbath! Because of that, they thought Jesus was impure and a sinner. That alone was enough to condemn him.
But Jesus doesn’t stop there. And the Jewish people get even more scandalized, if that’s even possible. It’s because Jesus talks about God like he’s his Dad! And that’s just too much because Jesus is making himself equal to God. Think about it: in the Jewish world, even today as far as I know, you can’t even say God’s name out loud. It’s such a holy name that the only way to refer to him is by saying his consonants or using other words. That’s how they show the distance between God and humans. God belongs to the sacred realm.
Compared to that idea, Jesus shows us something that’s fundamental, essential, in his message: God is Father, God is his Father, his Abba. Like Wikipedia says, Abba ‘was the loving name that Aramaic children (3rd century BC – 3rd century AD) used to refer to their fathers, and it combines some of the intimacy of the English word «dad» with the dignity of the word «father,» so it’s an informal and respectful expression. Therefore, more than a title, it was a loving way to express oneself and one of the first words a child learned to say.’
This tells us not just how Jesus referred to God. It tells us how Jesus related to God. By extension, it tells us how Christians understand God and relate to him. We see that in the simple prayer Jesus taught his disciples when they asked him to teach them how to pray, and it starts by saying ‘Our Father.’ It’s not easy to change your perspective. We can understand that it’s hard for many people to understand God like that and they still have the image of an all-powerful, controlling, watchful, threatening, and judging God in their hearts. But Jesus teaches us to see God, our Abba, in a different way. And from there, the whole Gospel makes sense in a new way. Because God is my ‘Dad,’ and from there, everything looks different.