Jesus as the Presence of Abba: Humanity and Sacrament
This paper examines Bernard Cooke's theological concept of Jesus as the presence of Abba, focusing on how Christ's dual nature — fully human and fully divine — forms the foundation of Christian sacramental theology. The paper argues that Jesus' humanity allows believers to approach the divine with less fear, while His divinity makes redemption possible. Drawing on Cooke's Sacraments and Sacramentality, the essay explores the Incarnation, the institution of the Eucharist, and the Church itself as expressions of the sacramental mystery. It concludes that Christ embodies the sacrament precisely because He is both human and divine, and that this union gives ultimate meaning to creation, sacrifice, and salvation.
- Introduction: Identifying with Christ's Humanity: Why Christ's humanity draws believers closer
- Abba and the Sacramental Presence of Jesus: Cooke's framing of Jesus as fundamental sacrament
- The Church as Sacrament: Church's sacramental identity rooted in dual nature
- The Mystery of Incarnation and Redemption: Why God becoming human was theologically necessary
- The Eucharist and Christ's Sacramental Institution: Christ instituting sacrament through bread and wine
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper connects a specific theological concept — Jesus as "Abba" — to broader sacramental theology, grounding the abstract in concrete doctrine (the Eucharist, the Incarnation, the Church).
- It integrates a direct quotation from Cooke naturally, using it as a pivot point to develop the argument rather than simply decorating the text.
- The writing maintains a consistently reflective, devotional tone appropriate to theological inquiry while still advancing a clear analytical argument about Christ's dual nature.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates the technique of theological synthesis: it takes a single scholarly claim (Cooke's framing of Jesus as the fundamental sacrament) and expands it outward to encompass multiple doctrinal dimensions — Christology, ecclesiology, and Eucharistic theology — showing how one concept illuminates a network of related ideas.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens by establishing why Christ's humanity is the more accessible entry point for believers, then introduces Cooke's sacramental framework as support. It broadens the argument to the Church as sacrament, explains why the Incarnation was theologically necessary, and concludes with the Eucharist as the clearest institutional expression of Christ's sacramental identity. The argument flows from personal accessibility toward doctrinal depth.
Introduction: Identifying with Christ's Humanity
Cooke's discussion of Jesus as the presence of Abba relies centrally on Jesus' humanity, because it is His humanity that we are primarily able to identify with — and that we ourselves ultimately rely upon in order to connect to His divinity. By bringing the element of "Abba" into the discourse, Cooke helps us differentiate between the two natures of Christ: Christ as Man and Christ as God. While we need both — for it is the very nature of our sinful predicament that we can only be saved by the Son of God made Man offering His own life to save ours — we have a tendency to resist or be mystified by the divine nature. The human nature, on the other hand, calls to us, and we recognize it.
We recognize the divine nature as well, but tend to be frightened by it. We are like those who asked Christ to leave them after He sent the demons into the pigs, which then rushed into the waters and drowned. When Christ presents Himself as the presence of "Abba," it is in order to help us see that the mystery of our salvation is bound up in the mystery of His Incarnation and in His nature. By introducing this alternate way of thinking of Him, we are able to come nearer to Him with less trepidation, and to see in His sacraments the beautiful call to the soul that is inherent in them.
Abba and the Sacramental Presence of Jesus
As Cooke (1994) writes, "Another way of describing the role of Jesus in instituting Christian sacraments is to say that he is himself the fundamental sacrament of God's saving presence in human history" (p. 59). Essentially, this is exactly what Jesus does by linking Himself to Abba: He defines His own humanity, which connects Him to us in a way that we would otherwise be reluctant to admit. He is like one of us, and He unites Himself to us through this manner.
The Church as Sacrament
The Church is a sacrament because Jesus is both human and divine — and that is the very point of the mystery of our Redemption and His Sacrifice: it could not have been achieved any other way. God could have simply forgiven mankind without sacrifice, but that would have negated the entire narrative, the entire construct of God's creation — the meaning of love, of free will, of devotion, truth, justice, and mercy.
All of it is bound up in the mystery of creation and in the mystery of redemption. The very term sacrament — holy mystery — is what gives us our meaning, and Christ embodies this idea. He is this idea. He is the answer to all prayers, the beginning and end of all creation: the Word that was before all, and the Judge Who will come at the end to judge all. He is the sacrament and He is the Church: He is both because He is human and divine. No mere human could have such power — and the divine entity alone, without becoming Man, could have no substantial impact on the arc of humankind's existence. A redemption without a sacrifice on the part of God Himself — on the part of God made Man — would have less significance for mankind as a whole, because it would only partially relate to what it means to be both a material and spiritual creature.
Reference
Cooke, Bernard. Sacraments and Sacramentality. March 1994.
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