| The forgotten prayer |
|
 Deborah P. Brunt
It happened with stunning consistency. Time and again, I led a group of conferees to recite the Lord's Prayer, King James version (since that's how most had learned it):
"Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen" (Matt. 6:9-13).
On each occasion, I explained, "The last line - the kingdom and power and glory line - doesn't appear in the oldest manuscripts. The prayer Jesus taught is composed entirely of petitions." Then I asked, "Tell me the petitions in the Lord's Prayer."
Each time, different voices named different petitions: "Give us our daily bread." "Thy kingdom come." "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." "Thy will be done." "Lead us not into temptation." "Deliver us from evil."
Finally, as everyone fell silent, I asked, "Anything else?"
Time and again, everyone looked at me blankly.
"You forgot the very first petition," I told them. "Hallowed be your name." |
| Pious rhetoric or key petition? |
In childhood, I learned to recite the Lord's Prayer. We used the King James pronouns, and we pronounced the word hallowed with three syllables. Together, we intoned, "Hal-lo-wed be thy name."
I had no clue what that meant. I suspect, neither did anyone else.
Most of us do not use the term "hallowed" in our everyday vocabulary. We might pray for a person's health or job or family, but we don't generally pray for someone's name. Nor do we use the awkward grammatical construction most English translations employ for this clause. We don't say, for example, "Happy be your day."
For all these reasons, the words, "Hallowed be thy name," sound to us like so much pious rhetoric. Unable to decipher the clause, we treat it as a religious greeting or perhaps a statement of praise.
But Jesus was not padding his prayer with introductory fluff. Nor was he teaching praise. He was instructing us who to pray for and what to ask for.
Much to our amazement, he taught us to pray first for God: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:9-10, italics mine).
Much to our bewilderment, he taught us to ask first for what we understand least: "Hallowed be your name."
When we disregard this petition, we omit the one request that is key to every other prayer. |
| FYI |
You cannot pray this prayer soul first. Your mind can't grasp it; your emotions can't embrace it. Praying for God arises from an inexplicable Spirit-to-spirit connection. As you choose to confess Christ as Lord - truly, deeply, continually - your human spirit begins to resonate with the yearnings of God's Spirit. Only then, and usually after first putting up a fuss, do your soul and body begin to echo the same yearnings.
Below, we'll explore what it looks like for God's name to be hallowed. Such insights can help your mind catch up to your spirit. But know this: Apart from the spirit, mental understanding will leave you stranded. Rational thinking can never teach you why this request carries such profound weight, nor spark in you a profound desire to see God's name hallowed. These words will remain pious rhetoric until something in the deepest part of you grabs hold of this forgotten prayer and will not let it go.
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| The opposite of hallowing |
To hallow can mean "to make holy." Yet, surely, Jesus wasn't teaching us to pray, "Father, may your name be made holy." God's names express his essence. His names reflect his character. He is already, eternally, "holy, holy, holy."
To hallow can also mean "to honor as holy." Ah, this definition sheds more light. Jesus was teaching us to ask: "Father in heaven, may you be treated as the holy God you are."
Still, we're puzzled. What does it look like to honor God's name as holy?
Sometimes, the easiest way to understand something is to look at its opposite. In Scripture, the opposite of hallowing is profaning.
To profane is "to violate, as anything sacred; to treat with abuse, irreverence . . . or contempt; to desecrate; to pollute."
Years ago while visiting my parents' home in northeast Mississippi, I went for a walk down a rural road. The sun shone from a cloudless sky. Temperatures hovered at 75 degrees. A breeze tickled my face. Around a sharp curve, tall oaks arched over the roadway. To my left, a deep-cut stream gurgled. To my right, a sleepy horse grazed.
Yet, a setting that should have been idyllic was trashed. Rank smells assaulted me. Accumulated litter disgusted me. All along the roadside, people had thrown beer cans and bottles, 6-pack boxes, soft-drink containers, paper cups and remains of fast-food take-out meals.
During my childhood, the property along that roadway was "hallowed" - its natural beauty appreciated and maintained. The day of my walk, the landscape was violated, polluted, "profaned." |
| Father abuse |
God's name, his character, has a breath-taking purity and beauty far greater than the natural beauty of the countryside where I walked. To profane God's name is to defile his beauty, to trash his reputation, to violate his glory.
Who would do such a thing? Who could do such a thing?
Sadly, we who identify ourselves with God's name have the greatest capacity to profane God's name. We who call God "our Father" have the greatest ability to abuse him.
If Harold's child does terrible things, that may make me very sad and very angry. It may wring from me a cry for justice and even a determination to stop the wrongs. But the deeds done by Harold's child cannot hurt my good name. And yet those deeds can ruin Harold's name. Those deeds can destroy Harold's reputation and undo a world of good that Harold himself has accomplished.
Like Harold's child, we can defile our Father's glory. We can do so without even realizing it. Yet our Father will not excuse our ignorance. He knows how crucial it is that his glory be seen. Where his name is hallowed, there his kingdom comes and there his will is done.
By his Spirit and his word, God shows us what honors his holy name - and what profanes it. A kind Father who extends patience and love to his children, he nevertheless will not stand for Father abuse. In Exodus 20:7, he himself declares, "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name."
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| Profanity in action |
In the Old Testament, God identifies three ways his people can profane his name.
1. We profane our Father's name when we live in ways that shame him and trash his reputation.
The prophet Ezekiel reported, "Again the word of the LORD came to me: 'Son of man, when the people of Israel were living in their own land, they defiled it by their conduct and their actions. . . . So I poured out my wrath on them because they had shed blood in the land and because they had defiled it with their idols. I dispersed them among the nations, and they were scattered through the countries; I judged them according to their conduct and their actions. And wherever they went among the nations they profaned my holy name, for it was said of them, "These are the LORD's people, and yet they had to leave his land"'" (Ezek. 36:16-21).
We misrepresent the Lord when we do not live out our new identity in Christ. We bring contempt on his name when we treat other people badly, when we value anything or anyone more highly than we value him - and when we live in powerlessness and defeat as a result.
2. We profane our Father's name when we offer him lame worship and second-rate service.
In Leviticus 22, the Lord listed the requirements for acceptable sacrifices. He said, "Do not bring anything with a defect, because it will not be accepted on your behalf. . . . it must be without defect or blemish to be acceptable" (Lev. 22:20-21). After explaining in detail what constituted a "defect," he concluded, "I am the LORD. Do not profane my holy name, for I must be acknowledged as holy . . ." (vv. 31-32).
In Isaiah 1, the Lord exclaimed: "I am sick of your sacrifices. Don't bring me any more of them. . . . Who wants your sacrifices when you have no sorrow for your sins? The incense you bring me is a stench in my nostrils. Your holy celebrations . . . - even your most pious meetings - all are frauds! I want nothing more to do with them. I hate them all; I can't stand the sight of them" (Isa. 1:11-14 TLB).
Today, God still is repulsed when we litter our ministry and worship with things he hates: when we just go through the motions, seek first to make ourselves feel good, praise with our lips but not our lives or offer our heavenly Father anything less than all.
3. We profane our Father's name when we let anything take precedence over his honor.
Near the end of their 40-year wanderings, the Israelites complained (again) because they had no water.
"Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the tent of meeting and fell facedown, and the glory of the LORD appeared to them. The LORD said to Moses, 'Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.'
"So Moses took the staff from the LORD's presence, just as he commanded him. He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, 'Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?' Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.
"But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 'Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them'" (Num. 20:6-12).
For 40 years, Moses fulfilled a tough assignment well. Then, provoked to anger, he lost his temper, disobeyed God and gave himself and Aaron credit for provision God supplied. Immediately, God banned Moses and Aaron from entering the Promised Land. To our thinking, the consequences far outweigh the crime. That's because we cannot grasp how grievous the offense. Moses witnessed God's glory. Then, in front of people who looked to him to lead in godliness, he profaned God's name.
All who witness God's glory have a profound responsibility to honor and not violate his breath-taking purity and radiance. If we do not hallow God's name - if indeed we continually abuse our heavenly Father by living lives that shame him, offering worship that sickens him and making choices that dishonor him - how can we expect him to "give us," "forgive us," "lead us," and "deliver us"?
We cannot.
As with Moses, God may act for the sake of his name even when we profane him - but every time we mistreat him, we maul ourselves. Only when we honor God as holy do we position ourselves to know him intimately and to receive what he gives lavishly. As we honor him, his gifts emerge, his fruit ripens and his life overflows into the lives of others. As we honor him, he includes us in his intensely challenging and wildly satisfying adventure of kingdom conquest. |
| Who can hallow his name? |
Ah, but if the Lord has a no-tolerance policy with regard to Father abuse - if he allows no defects and excuses no sins - who can hallow his name?
We find the answer hidden, again in plain sight, in Ezekiel 36. After rebuking his people for their shameful behavior, God said: "I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel profaned among the nations where they had gone. Therefore say to the house of Israel, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: It is not for your sake, house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Sovereign LORD, when I am proved holy through you before their eyes" (Ezek. 36:21-23, italics mine).
God promises to hallow his own name through the very children who have abused him and trashed his reputation. When he does, nations who do not yet call him Father will know I AM.
What "things" will God do to show the holiness of his great name?
Sometimes - when all other options have been exhausted - God uses scathing judgments to demonstrate his holiness. But judgment gives him no pleasure, and that is not what he's promising here. God also honors his own name through works of power - miracles, signs, wonders. Yet remember the exodus from Egypt - God's miraculous signs brought him great fame, but the Israelites' subsequent unbelief trashed his name. Glorious outward demonstrations remain incomplete without the astounding inner transformation God promises here:
"I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws" (Ezek. 36:25-27).
In effect, our Father says, "I will clean up my reputation by cleaning up my children. I will reveal my holiness to a watching world by pouring out amazing grace on my people, radically changing them so they can truly hallow me."
What the Father promised, he has accomplished through his Son. What the Father promised, he is accomplishing by his Spirit.
Jesus Christ became the perfect sacrifice, offering himself in our place. He "gave himself up for [us] to make [us] holy, cleansing [us] by the washing with water through the word, and to present [us] to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless" (Eph. 5:25-28).
God the Spirit indwells us, fills us, impregnates us with desires we otherwise cannot have and births in us what we otherwise cannot produce. In the Son, by the Spirit, we hallow the Father's name. |
| Hallowing in action |
We hallow our Father's name as we present ourselves wholly to him. "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God - this is true worship" (Rom. 12:1).
We hallow our Father's name as we live changed lives that honor him. Walking by the Spirit, we become like the tribe of Levi, whom God described this way in Malachi 2:5-6: "he revered me and stood in awe of my name. True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin."
We hallow our Father's name as we seek his renown above all else. With Isaiah, we declare: "Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts" (Isa. 26:8). |
| At the sound of your cry |
We who are associated with God's name have the greatest capacity to profane his name. We also have the supernatural capacity to hallow his name and, in so doing, to reveal I AM to the nations. So what determines whether we live our lives abusing our Father or glorifying him? What shifts us into the amazing flow of grace Ezekiel 36 promises?
Isaiah the prophet declared, "The LORD longs to be gracious to you, . . . He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you" (Isa. 30:18-19 NASU, italics mine).
Jesus said, "This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven . . ." He went on to teach us what cries the Lord longs to hear, what cries release his astounding promises of grace.
You who call God "Father," remember what Jesus taught us to pray first. Invite his Spirit to ignite your spirit, releasing that prayer deep within you.
I bless you with pressing into this prayer even when you do not see its practical value. Know in your spirit that praying for God's name has astounding implications beyond anything you can begin to fathom. As this prayer wells up in you, cry it aloud. Each time you open your mouth, the Lord himself will give you words to offer fresh, living, powerful prayer for HIM:
"Our Father in heaven, may your holy name be honored" (Matt. 6:9 TEV).
"Reveal who you are" (Matt. 6:9 MSG).
"This day in this situation, may I treat you as holy. May your name, Lord Jesus, be glorified in me."
"Spirit of God, so transform your people that we reflect your holiness and pursue your glory."
"Hallowed be your name!"
. . . . . . .
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, Today's New International Version™ TNIV ®. Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society ®. All rights reserved worldwide. Also quoted: The Living Bible (TLB), Today's English Version (TEV), New American Standard Bible Updated (NASU) and THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language (MSG) © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.
hallow. BibleSoft. NT:37. Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domain. Copyright © 1988 United Bible Societies, New York. Used by permission.
profane. Dictionary.com. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. MICRA, Inc. http://dictionary.classic.reference.com/browse/profane (accessed: May 28, 2009). |
| I confess |
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