Today is Wednesday the 24 March, in the 5th week of Lent.

One Hope Project sings, ‘Abba Father’.

Today’s reading is from the Gospel of John.

John 8: 39-42 

They answered him, ‘Abraham is our father.’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing what Abraham did, but now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are indeed doing what your father does.’ They said to him, ‘We are not illegitimate children; we have one father, God himself.’ Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but he sent me.

One of the Church’s official prayers calls Abraham “our father in faith”. The book of Genesis presents Abraham as someone who trusted God, even when the way forward wasn’t clear. Can you point to that kind of experience, of trust in darkness, in your own life? Perhaps this is something you are experiencing at the moment during the pandemic…

The passage moves from speaking of Abraham as father, to recognising God himself as the father of Jesus, and of the Jews. What does it mean to you to address God as “Father”?

Notice, as the passage is read again, what Jesus tells you about himself here. Where his teaching came from, how he came to be here…

Speak, finally, to the God who sends you out into the world, just as he sent out Jesus his Son.

You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.