What Jesus Meant When He Said "Father"

A pastoral letter from Mike Palmer · Red River Baptist Church · Father's Day 2026

While I was looking around this week, I came across a book called There Are Dads Way Worse Than You.* Darth Vader on the cover. Luke Skywalker beside him. Luke's severed hand on the floor. Unimpeachable evidence of your excellence as a father.

I laughed. Then I stopped laughing.

Even our jokes about fatherhood now have to leave room for trauma. Vader as the meme. Luke's hand as the punchline. Every story in this room is somewhere on that spectrum.

You did not sit down and decide what the word Father means. You absorbed it... before you had words for what you were doing.

So when Jesus opens his mouth in Matthew 6 and says Our Father... you already have that picture loaded.

"Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy."
— Matthew 6:9 (CSB)

The Greek word order in Matthew 6:9 places Father first. Pater hemon... "Father of us." The name before the claim. Not "our Father" the way English arranges it. Father first. Then ours.

Jesus chose that word. And he chose to lead with it.

Before you ask him for anything... the first word he puts in your mouth is Father. Not primarily a claim about how to address him. A claim about who you are to him.

We Have Been Going the Wrong Direction

The moment Jesus says "Father," almost all of us do the same thing.

We go the wrong direction.

We take what we know from our own fathers and we project it up onto God. It is not a decision exactly. It happens before you can catch it.

If your father was absent... God feels distant. Hard to reach. Somewhere out there, not that interested in the details of your life.

If your father was harsh... God feels impossible to satisfy. Always measuring. Always keeping score. No matter how much you do, you cannot quite clear the bar.

If your father was cold... prayer feels like talking into a ceiling.

And if your father was good... you have a head start. The word opens something warm in you almost automatically. That is a gift. But it is still the wrong direction. Every single version.

The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 3:

"For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named."
— Ephesians 3:14–15 (CSB)

Sit with that phrase. Every family... named from him.

The Greek word translated "family" is patria. It is broader than family. Every fatherhood. Every instance of what it means to be a father... in heaven and on earth... takes its name and its definition from this Father.

God's fatherhood is not derived from ours. Ours is derived from his.

D.A. Carson said it plainly in a lecture on this passage: "It is not that we have fathers and we project them on God and say, 'God must be like that.' It is just the opposite. God is the heavenly Father, and whatever notion of fatherhood is valid... comes from him."

Not: understand God by looking at your dad. But: understand what fathers were supposed to be... by looking at God.

Every human father is either imaging or distorting the fatherhood of God. Most of us do both. Your dad was not the standard. God is the standard. Your dad was either reflecting something of the original... or bending it... or missing it altogether.

If your dad was broken... the brokenness does not define God. It distorts his image. Do not let a broken human being write the definition of God for you.

A Word Too Familiar for the Synagogue

"You received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, 'Abba, Father!'"
— Romans 8:15 (CSB)

Abba.*

That is an Aramaic word. A child's word. Not formal. Not legal. Not the kind of word you would reach for in a synagogue prayer.

C.E.B. Cranfield, one of the great commentators on Romans, writes that Abba was "in origin an exclamatory form used by small children." The kind of word that sounds like what it means. Abba. Papa. Daddy.

In the Judaism of Jesus' day, this word was considered too familiar for prayer. Too homely. Too domestic. You did not address the God of the universe the way a child calls out for his father.

That was not how you talked to God.

The only person who walks into a king's room at three in the morning for a glass of water without knocking... is a child. Not because the child earned the access. Because a child does not stop to calculate whether they are allowed. That is what adoption gives you.

And then Jesus.

In the Garden of Gethsemane... on his knees in the dark... the night before the cross... facing something no human being had ever faced...

"Abba, Father! All things are possible for you. Take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will."
— Mark 14:36 (CSB)

That was Jesus' own word for God. The word Cranfield calls the expression of "his consciousness of a unique relationship to God."

And then Jesus hands this word to his disciples.

Cranfield again: "His authorizing his disciples to address God in this way is to be understood as his giving them a share in his relationship to God."

Not a copy. A share.

The door opens. Into a relationship that was never ours by birth. Made ours by grace.

And the Spirit himself makes us able to say it. Even when we do not know how. Even when the word catches in our throats. Even when it has been damaged by someone who should have known better.

The Spirit knows how to say it.

What the Empty Tomb Purchased

John 20:17. Easter morning. Mary is weeping in the garden. She thinks Jesus is the gardener. He says her name. She recognizes him. And he says this:

"Don't cling to me, since I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."
— John 20:17 (CSB)

Notice what he does not say.

He does not say our Father. He says my Father... and your Father. The distinction matters. He is the eternal Son. We are the adopted children. The access is the same.

In all four Gospels... Jesus never once said "your Father" to his disciples this way. Not during three years of ministry. Not in the upper room. Not on the cross. Only after the resurrection.

My Father... is now your Father.

That is what the empty tomb purchased.

You do not walk up to the Father of the universe and say Abba because you feel spiritual enough. You walk up because of what Jesus did. Because the Son who prayed Abba in Gethsemane went through death for you... came out the other side... and looked at a weeping woman in a garden and sent her with a message.

Tell them. My Father is their Father now.

The access is through Christ. The door is the cross and the resurrection. And the door is open.

The Father Who Runs

Jesus told a story.

A son took his inheritance early. Left home. Spent everything. Hit bottom. Came to his senses. Started walking back.

And Luke 15 says this. When the father saw him... while he was still a great way off... the father ran.

"But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him."
— Luke 15:20 (CSB)

He did not wait on the porch. He did not fold his arms. He did not say "let him come all the way."

He saw him from a distance and he ran.

That is not what scorekeepers do. That is not what stern judges do. That is not what you deserve when you have wasted everything. But that is what this Father does.

Many of us live like orphans... reaching for a Father who is already running.

That is the God Jesus means when he says "Our Father in heaven." The one who sees you from a long way off. And comes running.

For Everyone Reading This

If you had a good father... thank God for him today. Genuinely. He was a gift. But do not stop there. Your dad was a reflection. God is the original. Every good thing your dad ever did... every time he showed up, every time he stayed, every time he got it right... was a shadow of the real thing. The original is still there.

If your father was absent... if he left when you were small, if he never showed up, if he chose other things over you... hear this. There is a Father who has never taken his eyes off you. Who has never chosen something else over you. Who runs toward you rather than away.

If the word father still has an edge to it... if it is a word that carries weight you did not choose... hear this. Your dad was not the definition. He was a broken version of it. Do not let what a human being broke write the definition of what God is.

And if Father's Day is just hard... if it is a Sunday you endure every year... hear this. The Spirit of adoption lives in everyone who trusts in Christ. And Paul says he cries out from within us: Abba. Father.

Even when you cannot find the word yourself. Even when it catches in your throat. Even when it has been damaged by a human being who should have known better.

The Spirit knows how to say it.

Just Come

Jesus taught his disciples to pray. The first word he put in their mouths was not Lord. Not King. Not Creator.

Father.

Everything in that prayer flows from this word. Because if God is our Father... what we need, he provides. What we have broken, he forgives. Where we have wandered, he can find us. Where we are going... he will be there.

You get to say that word. Not because you earned it. Not because your family background qualifies you. Not because you have been in church long enough.

But because on a Sunday morning in a garden... a risen man looked at a weeping woman and said: go tell them. My Father... and your Father.

If you have never stepped through that door... if you have spent your whole life looking at God through the lens of the fathers you had on earth...

Look at the Father of Jesus. The one who runs. The one who names every fatherhood in heaven and on earth. The one who sent his own Son through the worst of it so you could be called his child.

The door is open. You do not have to earn your way through it.

Just come.

Yours in Christ,
Mike Palmer
Pastor, Red River Baptist Church

P.S. If Father's Day is heavy for you this year... do not endure it alone. The door I keep talking about is open Sunday morning at Red River. Come sit in the room. Or call me. The Spirit is already saying the word for you.