By Pastor Brian Phillips
“O Lord, grant me to greet the coming day in peace. Help me in all things to rely upon Your holy will. In every hour of the day reveal Your will to me. Bless my dealings with all who surround me. Teach me to treat all that comes to me throughout the day with peace of soul, and with the firm conviction that Your will governs all. In all my deeds and words guide my thoughts and feelings. In unforeseen events let me not forget that all are sent by You. Teach me to act firmly and wisely, without embittering or embarrassing others. Give me strength to bear the fatigue of this coming day with all that it will bring. Direct my will, teach me to pray, pray You Yourself in me. Amen.”
Notice the line – “teach me to pray, and pray You Yourself in me. Amen.” The prayer, which is a morning prayer from St. Philaret of Moscow, ends with the desire for more prayer, and the request that the Lord would continue teaching us in the art of prayer, that the Lord would pray in us when we do not know what to say or what to ask for.
The disciples, in Luke’s Gospel, echo this desire, saying, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” And, in answer to that request, Jesus said, “Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’”
We sing this prayer every Lord’s Day in the liturgy, not because the elders thought it’d be a “nice touch” but because, in it, we have the whole of prayer. In this short prayer, Jesus models for us worship, submission, trust, petition, and confession.
Jesus begins, “Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven…” These opening words, so familiar that we can easily pass them by without much thought, were the subject of great consideration by the Church fathers. Tertullian wrote, “By saying ‘our Father who art in heaven’ we are both adoring God and expressing our faith.” He also noted that “To address God as Father is the privilege of belief in the Son.” That is, prayer of the type Jesus is describing is the special privilege of Christians – not all “prayer” is created equal.
John calls us back to this incredible idea in 1st John 3:1 – “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God!” We have received “adoption as sons…And because (we) are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” We approach the Lord with reverence, certainly, but also with the joy of a child calling out to his loving Father. There is closeness here, intimacy, affection.
St. Augustine, in commenting on this part of the prayer, said, “Do not think of heaven in simplistic spatial metaphors, as if the birds are nearer to God than we. It is not written that ‘the Lord is closer to tall people.’” Now, Augustine was ministering to those who once held the old Greco-Roman beliefs that the birds were the messengers of the gods because they were nearer to the gods. So, he is trying to rid them of that idea; but it applies to us as well. When we pray, “Our Father who art in heaven,” we must not have the idea that there is a vast expanse between us and the Lord. As the Children’s Catechism teaches: “Where is God? He is everywhere.”
So, we have the honor of praying, “Our Father who art in heaven,” and we continue – “hallowed be your name” or “holy be your name.” Another Church father, Cyprian, made an excellent observation here, saying, “God who is incomparably holy is not made holy by our prayer; rather, we pray that his holy name may daily be made holy in us.” Another way of saying this is “may Your name be kept holy.” We are praying that we, and those around us, would treat the Lord with reverence.
Now, notice how these two complement one another – we call upon Him as His children, yet we do so while keeping His name holy. There is love and reverence, affection and fear.
Jesus continues, telling us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” This prayer of submission to the Father foreshadowed and now echoes the prayer of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane when, even looking ahead to the cross, Jesus submitted Himself to the will of the Father. In heaven, God’s will is done perfectly, continually; just as we pray it will be done here.
We pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” a request loaded with meaning. We are, of course, praying for God’s daily provision for our physical needs; that He would provide us with food. But, in that, we are offering a prayer against worry and anxiety. In fact, the phrase could very easily be translated as “give us our bread for tomorrow.” In other words, it is not our job to worry with the things of tomorrow – our days are in the Lord’s hands (read 6:31-34).
But, there is more to this request than simply asking for bread. Notice that Jesus connects this request for daily bread with “and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Now, we will come back to this idea next week when we look at verses 14-15, where Jesus obviously returns to the subject of forgiveness and prayer, but for now let’s note one thing. When Jesus tells us to pray for our “daily bread” and then connects it with forgiveness, He is speaking beyond mere physical bread or the meeting of physical needs. It seems to me that He is teaching us to pray for grace, mercy, and forgiveness ourselves – we are praying for the Bread of Life, not just physical bread. In John 6:51 Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Finally, Jesus tells us to pray, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (or from the evil one). Having prayed that our debts or trespasses would be forgiven, we now pray for God’s help in resisting them in the future. Martin Luther noted – “The devil who besets us is not lazy or careless, and our flesh is too ready and eager to sin and is disinclined to the spirit of prayer.” So, we pray for God’s help to resist temptation, to resist the evil one, and that the Lord would lead us away from temptation to begin with, an acknowledgement of our weakness and our need for God’s strength and grace.