Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished,
one of his disciples said to him,
"Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples."
The disciple seemed to sense that there was something uncommon about the prayer life of Jesus, some elevated about the ritual and routine that defined the practice of prayer for others. It seemed that it was also similar for John the Baptist, who must have radiated a close proximity to God because of his life of prayer, and who was able to speak powerful prophetic words because of that nearness. But however close John may have been to God in prayer, and however unusual that may have been, Jesus was something else again.
He said to them, "When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name
Jesus, revealed to be the Son of the Father at his baptism, now desired to welcome others into his own relationship with his Father. In the Old Testament God was spoken of abstractly as the Father of Israel, or sometimes in a ritual way of kings. But Jesus invited his followers into a dynamic and living relationship with his Father. Although we often blow by this first line of the prayer without much thought or recollection it is meant to be life-changing. We get some grasp of this when we hear how scandalous it was for Jesus to make the claim of himself when we realize it was part of the reason his enemies sought his life, saying "he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God" (see John 5:18).
The divine Sonship of Jesus was proclaimed at his baptism. In our own baptisms we begin to share in this Spirit of adoption, sometimes called divine filiation.
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" (see Romans 8:15).
The truth of who we are in God is what elevates us above the status of spiritual slavery and allows us to conquer fear. But it will not do this simply by us thoughtlessly repeating a set of words and phrases. We need to ask God for genuine revelation of this truth, that the Holy Spirit would cry "Abba! Father!" within our own hearts, and not just in general in those of others. Just as Peter received a revelation of who Jesus was from the Father so too must we receive revelation of who we are in Jesus from him. Or at least, we must do this if we want to genuinely express the same courage and confidence as Paul did in the passage we cited from his Letter to the Romans.
It is as sons and daughters in Jesus that the other petitions of the Father take on the fullness of their meaning. When we know the Father we begin to desire what he desires and trust him for what we require. We see the way sin is harming his creatures from his point of view and therefore resolve more and more to cut our ties with it. We know that God permits us to be tested for the sake of helping us to grow. But we know that there are tests that will always be beyond our strength. We learn to rely on God to permit only those which are for our good and to keep us from "the final test" which would be too much for us.
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are (see First John 3:1).
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