Understanding The Lord’s Prayer: Hallowed Be Thy Name

(Continued from page 1)

This teaching has always been a pretty hard one to accept. For centuries now, we Christians have been whipping ourselves as miserable sinners, whose salvation comes from outside providence. It is a message entrenched in American popular song. Take for example our enduring Southern spirituals. “Amazing Grace” confirms our status as insufferable wretches, while “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” looks toward a better home in the sky because the one here on earth is hopeless. It’s no wonder we are so darned depressed.

But Jesus, with his keen understanding of psychology, knew that nothing good would come from beating ourselves up. He calls on us instead to look upon life with love and joy.¹ When he says that he has gone away to prepare a place for us,² he isn’t talking about turning down the sheets in an extra–terrestrial mansion. He is talking about opening the chambers of our hearts, so that we can receive God’s message³ and begin experiencing his kingdom today.

The problem is that we Christians confuse the process of turning inward with egoism and self–indulgence—in other words, sin. But the ego and the id (the source of all this wickedness we hate) are just the outer surface of our inner life. They are the thick skin which hides the sweeter fruit,⁴ the one nourished by the living water⁵ of the Holy Spirit inside the kingdom of heaven. The living God created it for the Son: for each one of us as his children.⁶ And it is by tasting this fruit that we take part in his abundance.

More so than anything else, it is for the sake of God’s abundance that Jesus cannot name him. Because when we attach a name to a person, object, or idea, we place it inside a box, a category. We think we’ve identified it. We put limits on it. But God is beyond such limitations. We can’t securely confine him within a name. We can only try to describe that name. And for Jesus the descriptive is “Hallowed,” in other words, “Holy,” in other words, “Whole.” God is seeking wholeness for us, for his creation, and (as we will soon find out) for himself, too.

Read Chapter 3:  Thy Kingdom Come (Understanding God’s Kingdom)

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1. It is by your bearing fruit plentifully, and so showing yourselves my disciples, that my Father is honored. – John 15: 8 [↩]
2. In my Father’s home there are many dwellings. If it had not been so, I should have told you, for I am going to prepare a place for you. 3 And, since I go and prepare a place for you, I shall return and take you to be with me, so that you may be where I am. – John 14:2–4 [↩]
3. By that in the good ground are meant those who, with a good and honest heart, keep the message and patiently bring forth its fruit. – Luke 8:15 [↩]
4. “There is no such thing as a good tree bearing worthless fruit, or, on the other hand, a worthless tree bearing good fruit. 44 For every tree is known by its own fruit. – Luke 6: 43–44 [↩]
5. all who drink once of the water that I will give them shall never thirst anymore; but the water that I will give them shall become a spring welling up from within—a source of everlasting life.” – John 4:14 [↩]
6. To all who did receive him he gave power to become Children of God. – John 1:12 [↩]