“Abba, Father”
Abba, Father… all things are possible for You. Take this cup from Me. Yet not what I will, but what You will. (Mark 14:36 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A doubled title, or (in popular teaching) baby-talk for 'Daddy.'
The cultural key
Abba is the Aramaic family word for father, the address children and grown children alike used at home. The popular claim that it means 'Daddy' overshoots (scholars corrected that a generation ago); it is not babyish, but it is warm, personal, and familial rather than liturgical. Jews of the period rarely addressed God this directly in prayer. The word so marked Jesus' own praying that Greek-speaking churches kept the foreign word on their lips: Paul's Gentile converts in Rome and Galatia prayed 'Abba! Father!' in Aramaic they otherwise didn't speak.
Recovered meaning
At the lowest point in the story, facing the cup, Jesus addresses God with the intimate family word, and then hands over his will. The early church treasured the word because praying it meant being adopted into that same relationship.