Our...Father

When Jesus died and rose to life, he did so in order that we might live His life.

His life is lived in, sustained by, and provided for by the love of the Father. This is the life he gives us, the one He has been living. So he says Our Father. His father is now ours.

A relationship is always two ways. It gives and receives. That means that when God becomes our Father by a unique act in history, then God also receives us into his family. He gives us Himself, we give Him ourselves, and we both receive.

Jesus has got to be thrilled. Because He had already accomplished this union in His body: God takes a human body, becomes a human; humanity receives God in our own flesh.

Each of these two words proclaims one aspect of this mystery. When we say "Our Father" we proclaim, receive and live within this most glorious event in Jesus Christ's life death and resurrection: We have the Father, and the Father has received us as His own, into His love.

The rest of the Lord's prayer expounds on this relationship, this mystery, first lived by Christ in his own biography, and now lived by us. The "petitions", as they are called, walk us through the heart of the Father, now expressed on our lips. Why should our lips express the Father's heart? Because now we share one heartbeat: His Holy Spirit. Rather than being effaced or replaced, our heart finds its truest expression in that of the Father, big enough for all desire, great enough for all that is good, strong enough to ensure all hope.