25A The Lord's Prayer 1

Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.

Matthew 6:9

Saying the Lord’s Prayer is like putting on your mom’s fur coat. It may not fit now, but when you grow up it will.

In Mark 25, we came to understand in a new way what it means to call God our Father. How wonderful! No father of the flesh can compare in wisdom and generosity to the Father by whose will and nothing else, you were born.

And yet, Christ doesn’t tell us to say My Father, but Our Father. We live as a family unit loving each other who we can see even as we love Him who we cannot see. My ability to be a good brother or sister is as important to fitting into this big fur coat as my ability to perceive as Father the Creator of the universe, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the God who lead the Israelites out of Egypt and slavery. He is a very specific Person. He is not just anything we want him to be.

He is in heaven because the earth cannot contain Him. He is there and we are here. He is light-years above us. He is more magnificent than the sun, and more peaceful than the stars. His home is beyond the galaxies. His paintbrush sketches the nebula.

Holy is His name because He indescribable. In the very first commandment to Moses He made it clear, “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other Gods before me.” The Name on your lips and in your heart is so exclusive as to abhor casual usage. Imagine this: the Name above all names that the Jews dared not say as a word, YHWH, is suddenly called our Father.

For the only begotten Son to tell us to call the Lord of all Father was the very beginning of Christ’s mission to bring the children of Adam and Eve back from distrust and banishment.

Awesome!