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The
Lord’s Prayer Dr Milutin Drobac |
Our
Father
is probably the first prayer we learned by memory. Even the smallest
children are heard reciting it in our churches. It is also the most
difficult of prayers to understand, in contrast to the simple, yet
resonant prayer of the tax collector, God be merciful to me a
sinner (Lk 18:13). Our Father was given by our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ as a prayer to his disciples, who were already
imbued with enough spiritual understanding to perceive its deeper
meaning. The very first line of the Lord’s prayer begs the question,
by what right do we call God Father? Many authors have pointed out that
to answer this question we must study the Our Father from back to
front. We
do not put on clean clothes until our body is washed. Who can bring a
clean thing out of an unclean (Job 14:4). Wash you, make you
clean, put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes (Is
1:16). Washing comes before dressing. At our baptism our Godparent turns
us first to the West and renounces Satan – not some undefined and
vague concept of evil – but the very personification of evil. Get
thee hence, Satan (Mat 4:10), Jesus commands, and likewise the Lord
cast out not evil, but evil spirits to make Mary Magdalene whole
(Lk 8:2). After thrice renouncing Satan, our Godfather turns us to the
East, and after our threefold baptismal immersion, we are hymned with For
as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ
(Gal 3:27): new clothing on clean bodies. It is for these reasons that
we were taught to pray: Deliver
us from the evil one. Thus
clothed with the armour of Christ, throughout our lives we enter into
tests – battles which harden us to resist our enemy. Some are small
conflicts, others great wars. When Lot and his family escaped from the
city of Sodom, God warned them not to even glance back, but his wife
looked back from behind (Gen
19:26), and she perished. We must not fall prey to the temptation of
looking back with desire to the very thing we have just renounced. If
the roots of our faith are weak we will in time of temptation fall
away (Lk 8:13). Therefore we pray that every temptation we encounter
is for our victory and not for our fall. Lead
us not into temptation. How
often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?
(Mat 18:21). Jesus answers Peter’s question with likening the Kingdom
of Heaven to a master who forgives servants their debts, but this
forgiveness is possible only to those servants who have forgiven their
debtors. To approach God we must acquire some attributes of godliness
ourselves, and understanding this we cry, Forgive
us our debts as we forgive our debtors. The
German philosopher Feuerbach thought he could lay to rest the existence
of God when he stated that Man is what he eats. No truer words
were spoken, all for the wrong reason. Man eats, but shall not live
by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of
God (Mat 4:4). It is not just a meal a day that we seek, but a meal
from which we shall never hunger, we seek the true bread from
heaven, which giveth life to the world. For the bread of God is
he which cometh down from heaven. I am the bread of life, said our
Lord. (Jn 6: 31-35). This bread is the essential substance of life. It
is our very next breath, for which we pray: Give
us this day our daily bread. Now
we have taken on a little of the Image of God. Dressed in His Image we
become his instruments, to do His will here on earth as it is done so
perfectly in Heaven. This is all we are asked to do. It is through us
that God is manifested on earth. We are not slaves, but free men. We are
not compelled but rather delight to do thy will O my God: yea, thy
law is within my heart (Ps 40:8). Therefore we pray: Thy
will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. When
we fulfill God’s will, even in the smallest degree, we sanctify a
space within us for His Kingdom. Seek not what ye shall eat …but
rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added
unto you (Lk 12:29-31). God’s Kingdom is promised in this life,
for some will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God (Lk
9:27). The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall
they say, lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is
within you (Lk 17:21-22). We need only ask: Thy
Kingdom come. Living
now with the Kingdom of God filling our heart, we exalt in the Name of
the Lord (Ps 34:3). What Name shall we call Him? Do we ask like Moses, What
is his name? (Ex 3:13), or do we know like Paul that Christ
liveth in me (Gal 2:20). All
of our work and effort result in Christ being formed in us (Gal
4:19). This is the true freedom which delivers us from the yoke of
bondage (Gal 5:1) which is offered by the kingdoms of this world. Glory
ye in his holy name: let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord ((Ps
105:3). Hallowed
be Thy Name. Glorifying
the Name of God we are forced outward beyond the reach of our senses,
for His Name cannot be contained. It is written across the universe: The
heavens declare the glory of God (Ps 19:1). All this vastness God
sustains and nourishes in a never-ending ecstasy of Love: Thy mercy,
O Lord, is in the heavens (Ps 36:5). And even these cannot contain
Him, for creation is only a work of its Creator: Behold, the heaven
and heavens cannot contain thee (1Kg 8:27). Who
art in the heavens. Having
been cleansed and clothed in righteousness, our temptations harnessed
and our debts forgiven; having received our essential sustenance,
fulfilled God’s will on earth and opened our hearts to His Kingdom;
having stood in awe at His majestic Name, united to Christ, to Whom we
are brothers and sisters by adoption (Gal 4:4-5); having perceived the
signature of God across all of creation; we finally
earn the right to cry out: Our
Father. And
because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his son, into
your hearts, crying Abba, Father (Gal 4:6).
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