The memory of Jesus’ characteristic way of addressing God as “Abba” must have made a deep impression on the first followers. The word is an Aramaic way of speaking familiarly to one’s father (like Dad) that would have been common in Palestine. To address God in that way implied an intimacy which went beyond normal religious practice. St. Paul used the word in his letter to the Romans, “you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, ‘Abba, Father!'” Of course Rome is not Palestine and the letter is written in Greek, not Aramaic. The Apostle is conveying to the Roman Christians the sheer audacity of faith — that we who hold Jesus as our brother can claim the intimacy with God that he shared.
