The Lord’s Prayer: an elaboration
(being, for the most part, a transcription of a talk by G. Ashenden)
“Our Father which art in heaven - deliver us from evil;
Hallowed be Thy name – lead us not into temptation;
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven
– forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us;
Give us, this day, our daily bread. Amen.”
1 (a) Our Father which art in heaven . . . As believers, we are the adopted children of the creator of the universe. For it is written: “But as many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” [John 1: 12-13] and “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear but ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry ‘Abba, Father’.” [Romans 8:15]
1 (b) deliver us from evil; O God, whenever we reach out the Thee, the Evil One comes calling, seeking to undermine our adopted status, insinuating that we are not special after all and do not belong to Thee. The Evil One works tirelessly to accuse, divert and depress us. In Genesis, Adam and Eve were tempted and entrapped so that all humanity fell. O God, deliver us from this evil.
2 (a) Hallowed be thy name . . . Thou art holy; Thy holiness shines. Thou art untmost purity. It is written: “I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne: high and lifted up. And His train filled the temple. And above it stood the Seraphims and one cried to another ‘Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole Earth is full of His glory.” [Isaiah 6: 1-3] And also Thou did instruct Moses to tell the Israelites “Ye shall be holy for I, the Lord thy God, am holy.” [Leviticus 19:2]
2 (b) lead us not into temptation; O Lord, this world so often works to spoil the holy – the sacred – and to lead us into temptation. Purify our hearts, minds and speech so that we may keep to the straight and narrow path, growing ever ‘nearer My God to Thee’, drawn ever more into Thy consuming holiness.
3 (a) Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. The coming of Thy kingdom is founded not only in the forgiveness of our sins but also on our forgiveness of others. We yearn for an ever deeper relationship with the Lord Jesus, inviting Him to enter into our hearts. The Lord rode into Jerusalem on an ass, not to overthrow secular power but to redeem our salvation. Thy kingdom is not about social or political justice but rather about the struggle between Thee, our God, and the Evil One.
3 (b) forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; Thy Son, Jesus, came to do Thy will and now it is our mission and privilege to do the will of Jesus in our life on Earth: in the ‘imitation of Christ’. O God, it is only by being forgiven – purified – that, at the end of days, we will be able to stand in Thy presence and not be condemned by our frailty and flaws. Let Thy forgiveness reach ever deeper into our grudges, judgementalism and self-defensiveness to empty out our bitterness so that we become engulfed by Thy love and embark on the work of the kingdom: to turn the other cheek; to deny the evil that trades upon our feelings of being offended or of needing to glorify ourselves; and to practice forgiveness and reconciliation for those consumed by hatred.
4. Give us, this day, our daily bread. “He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a person may eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven” [John 6: 47-51]: the bread of life; the feeding on Jesus; the bread of heaven; the bread of immortality that comes through Scripture.
Amen