"Abba! Father!"

Last night I asked a question that I did not really answer. It may have been implied, but it was not directly answered. I answered the question about why baptism does not take away concupiscence, but I did not answer why it does not feel like anything happens when one is baptized. The first obvious response is that grace has little to do with feelings, just as much of life has little to do with feelings; they have their role, but it is a secondary and subordinate one. Living by one’s feelings is building a house upon the sand near the seashore—it feels good for a while, but catastrophe soon follows.

To discuss baptism further and in a positive light, I will examine the heart of the message of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. The center and most important part of his letter is found in the middle two paragraphs which are mirror images of one another in 3:23-4:7:
“Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no better than a slave, though he is the owner of all the estate; but he is under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. So with us; when we were children, we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir.”

The context of these paragraphs is that Paul is discussing how Abraham was justified by faith when he believed God would give him and his barren wife a son in their old age. God “reckoned it to him as righteousness,” back in Genesis 15, and it was not until Genesis 17 when God gives Abraham the covenant of circumcision. The big question Paul is addressing here in Galatians is the question of whether a Christian needs to be circumcised. His answer is no. Abraham had to be circumcised because he had tried to fulfill the promised son by having relations with Hagar, Sarah’s maid, upon the advice of his wife. Abraham listened to the voice of his wife and had relations with Hagar: the result was Ishmael. He was not the son God promised.

Abraham was 75 when God first promised a son to him; when he was 85 he had a son with Hagar, but that was not the son God had promised. It was not until Abraham was 99 when God gave him the covenant of circumcision that He re-promised Abraham a son. Twenty-five years after the initial promise, at the age of 100, Isaac was born to this most impossible set of parents. Isaac means laughter because his birth to such old parents was surely hysterical.

Because Abraham did not trust God Himself to provide the son but relied on the powers of his body and a woman not his wife, God provided a punishment that fit the fall. He trusted in his male part, so that very instrument, so to speak, had to be cut around. That was a painful procedure, especially at such an age, and it was a strategic strike at the symbolic root of the problem. Circumcision was added because of sin just as all the laws concerning animal sacrifices and other ritual offerings were. Israelites had to sacrifice bulls because they worshipped the golden calf; they sacrificed sheep because they worshipped goat demons in the desert; the sacrificed lambs because they worshipped themselves every time they sinned. All those laws were temporary to keep the people from falling further into sin. God is a good Father who gives appropriate and fitting penitential and medicinal punishments which are designed to bring the sinner back to Himself.

Circumcision was added as a law because Abraham, at root, did not trust in God. The problem was with his heart, his tree of life. True circumcision is circumcision of the heart; it is the cutting away of the dead, stony part to reveal the living fleshy part underneath. There is a fittingness to circumcision striking man’s “foot” as the material used in the sin, but deep down what is needed is a heart believing and obedient to God. In baptism, as Galatians says, we have been made sons and daughters of God; we have been made a new creation and given a new circumcised heart of flesh. We are born from above and become members of the new Israel of God as infants (usually), just as circumcision made one an Israelite in the Old Testament at eight days old, unless he was a convert. Baptism is the new circumcision. Instead of cutting away the foreskin, baptism imparts in our chest a new tree of life.

Now we are sons who have hearts filled with the Spirit of His Son. We have put on Christ and we make what was Christ’s our own. We become God’s children because we are now members of His Son. We have a new circumcised heart because we have been given Christ’s heart. The heart of Our Savior gave itself entirely on the cross and was cut through with a lance, pouring forth blood and water. This is the circumcision of His heart. This is the heart we receive at baptism.

Since Abraham never really trusted that God was going to give him a son, since he never fully passed the test, Abraham had to be tested once more. When Isaac, the one through whom God had promised to send a vast multitude of descendants, was old and strong enough to carry the wood for a burnt offering, it was then that God asked Abraham to kill this son of the promise. If Isaac was old enough to carry the wood for a long distance, surely he was strong enough to escape his 115 or more year-old dad. Both Abraham and Isaac willingly made the offering; there are a multitude of parallels between Isaac’s offering and Jesus’ crucifixion. For now, suffice it to say that they are images of one another. As the crucifixion was the circumcision of Jesus’ heart, so Abraham and Isaac’s sacrifice was the circumcision of theirs.

As Isaac and Abraham were getting close to offering the sacrifice, and before Isaac knew what they were going to sacrifice, Isaac said, Abba, Father, here is the wood and the fire, but where is the lamb? Since Paul is discussing all of this in Galatians, when he says that the spirit of the Son is in our hearts crying “Abba, Father,” Paul is directing our minds to these same words spoken by Isaac as he began his journey to his total self-oblation. Baptism sets us down the path that Isaac walked; it initiates us to pick up our own chunk of tree and follow our Savior as He makes His way to Calvary. The fulfillment of our Baptism is in our own crucifixion; and the Eucharist is the very heart of Jesus which provides us strength and food for this beautiful and aweful journey. On a daily basis, nourished by our daily bread, we die to our self in all the many little things of our ordinary life lived faithfully and well; we make our entire life, each and every day, each and every moment, an offering back to our loving Heavenly Father in imitation of His son who did so for most of His life in obscurity.


Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.