On this Father’s Day, 2026, I thought it might be appropriate to go over the origin of the reference to ABBA Father in the Scripture. Many people think that Hebrew was one of the original languages, but before Hebrew there was a pictorial language made up, for lack of a better word, of a type of hieroglyphics, such as you see in ancient Egyptian writings. Scholars have traced the first languages back to when there were characters that represented entire concepts. In fact, these characters eventually became part of our modern alphabet and today we accept them as part of our normal vocabulary.
For instance, our capital letter “A” when rotated 90 degrees to the left, represented the head of a bull. The tip of the “A” became the nose, the crossbar was extended up and those points became the two horns of the animal. In the earliest times, this letter came to represent the “strong one.” This eventually became the “alef” in the Hebrew alphabet and today we recognize it as the first letter in our modern alphabet.
The second letter of our current alphabet, the small letter “b”, is called “bet.” It was also rotated 90 degrees to the left and represented a tent on the open plain. These ancient peoples lived in tents and so it became synonymous with the living place, or “house” in our current language. When the two letters were placed side by side, and both rotated 90 degrees to the left (counterclockwise), the combination of letters became known as “the strong one of the house.” In other words, this is the foundation of the word “father” – the “strong one of the house.” That’s kind of interesting, isn’t it?
It was also the convention in those days that duplicating the letters in reverse order intensified the meaning of the word. So, “ABBA” became known as the supreme strong one – the ultimate strong one – the strongest one – God! Those early developers of language were successful in creating a concept for the naming of God based on the first two letters of our current alphabet. That’s amazing, isn’t it! I hope that you will never look at the word “ABBA” the same way again. After all, it really doesn’t originally have anything to do with a singing group…
In fact, the group ABBA, a Swedish band, derived their name from using the first letters of each of their Christian names – Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny and Anni. It was shortened from using their full first names – that had become unwieldy after they started to have some success. And the rest, as they say, is history.
The term ABBA only appears three times in the New Testament. In Romans 8:15, we find that Paul tells us the it is through the Holy Spirit that we cry ABBA Father. And in Galatians 4:6, Paul once again tells us that God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts and that Spirit calls out ABBA Father.
The third occurrence of the word ABBA is our verse for tonight. In this verse, Jesus cries out to His Father. All three times the term is used, it is an intimate setting and, clearly, the Spirit is involved as part of the Trinity.
In his Gospel, Mark gives us the words of Jesus as He approaches His crucifixion. Mark tells us, in Mark 14:36, “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
My encouragement this evening is that our ultimate Father, our ABBA Father, loves to be in communion with us. And we have that opportunity every moment of every day! My prayer is that even if you haven’t had a wonderful father here on earth, you have an awesome Heavenly Father, the one and only ABBA Father, who will love you through all eternity. Happy Father’s Day! Have a great day in the Lord, grace and peace…