When
John F. Kennedy was president of the US, photographers sometimes captured a
winsome scene. Seated around the president’s desk in the Oval Office, cabinet members
are debating matters of world consequence. Meanwhile, a toddler, the 2-year-old
John-John, crawls around and inside the huge presidential desk, oblivious to
White House protocol and the weighty matters of state. He is simply visiting
his daddy.
That
is the kind of shocking accessibility conveyed in the word Abba when Jesus
said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for You” (Mark 14:36). God may be
the sovereign Lord of the universe, but through His Son, God became as
approachable as any doting human father. In Romans 8, Paul brings the image of
intimacy even closer. God’s Spirit lives inside us, he says, and when we do not
know what we ought to pray “the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with
groanings which cannot be uttered” (v.26).
Jesus came to demonstrate that a perfect and holy God welcomes pleas for help from a widow with two mites and a Roman centurion and a miserable publican and a thief on a cross. We need only call out “Abba” or, failing that, simply groan. God has come that close to us.
