The model prayer brings to clarity the balance inherent in our walk with the Lord between the intimacy of relationship and the “fear of the Lord” appropriate for reverence.  The mystery of the incarnation is not merely that God would take human form, but that He would do so as one fully human, “gentle and humble of heart” (Matthew 11:29), inviting us into intimacy.  True incarnation – God emptied, made nothing, in the form of a servant (Philippians 2:5-11) carries with it the danger of irreverent familiarity.  The ancient urge to create a god in our own image leads us all too easily into the mistaken conclusion that the God made accessible in the person of Jesus is by the same token made less powerful, majestic or glorious.  In fact, the very opposite is true.  God’s grace, demonstrated toward us in Christ Jesus, is an attribute of surpassing glory, a cause for yet greater awe and a manifestation of supreme majesty.  (Ephesians 2:6,7)

In the model prayer, Jesus is careful to maintain the proper reverence for “Our Father.”  First, he directs us to his dwelling place – “in heaven”.  The story is told of one of the Soviet cosmonauts who, upon his return from space, reported, “When I got to heaven, I looked out the window, but I did not see God.”  In his arrogance, the atheist failed to realize that heaven is not a place in the common, physical sense.  It is rather the spiritual dwelling of God; His celestial house, His eternal kingdom.  Heaven is that place in the presence of Almighty God.  When we pray to “Our Father in heaven”, we acknowledge that he is not a creature like us.  He is creator.  He exists independently of us, free of our constraints, beyond our experience.  He is our Father by his choice alone.  It is he that comes to us for we are incapable of reaching to him.

Having directed us to the glory of God, the prayer calls on us to hallow his name.  To hallow is to make holy or to honor.  We could phrase the prayer, “Let your name be honored.”  The Jews held the name of God in highest reverence, though it was unknowable and unspeakable.  Their regard of the name was so great that they would not utter it, or even attempt to pronounce it.  It was a name too sacred to say.  Our best scholarship today still gives but a guess at the proper name of God.  Yet, Jesus tells us that we are to honor his name and revere it as holy.  To hallow God’s name is to recognize him as a distinct being.  He is not merely a god; that thing we choose to worship.  He is not a god of our making; the heavenly grandfather with a long, white beard, or the angry hurler of thunderbolts, or the master architect and designer.  He is God with a name, revealed in Scripture, who was and is and ever shall be.  His character and attributes are what He chooses them to be.  His will and his plans are his alone.  When we honor his name, we set him apart in our hearts from all those other things that compete for our worship.  We admit to his deity.  We recognize that he is God and we are not.

What does it mean to “honor” or “hallow” his name?  First of all, it means that we should be aware of and in awe of his presence.  He is not to be treated as a lucky rabbit’s foot, nor is his name to be used as some kind of charm or magic word to call down blessing or scare off the devil.  His name is not a means to add emphasis to a point in conversation nor is it an expletive.  His name, and the awareness of his person, is never to be taken lightly or in vain.

But honor cannot be defined only by what it is not.  Certainly, it means that those who wear his name, who belong to his family, should behave as children of God.  We must take care not to be like those of whom God said,  “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. “  (Isaiah 69:13)  Or as Ezekiel says, “My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to listen to your words, but they do not put them into practice.  With their mouths they express devotion, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain.  Indeed, to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words but do not put them into practice.”  (Ezekiel 33:31-32).  God’s name is honored when those who claim it keep his commandments (John 15:14), when they give their lives as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1,2), when they are doers of the word (James 1:22).  As Paul says in Colossians 3:17, “… whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Our Father

in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead in not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Matthew  6:9-13

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen