God’s Favorite Prayer to Answer
by David Mathis
We took a knee. John Fogerty’s “Centerfield” or
Alabama’s “Cheap Seats” would be playing over
the
loudspeakers. The crowd was settling into the
bleachers. The infielders had finished up the
final round of pregame grounders. The whole
team
sprinted to a spot in foul ground about thirty
feet from the base, and kneeled to hear Coach’s
game-time reminders and directions. Then, like
clockwork, he would utter the tired and worn
words again: “Our Father.”
The whole team of Southern boys joined in. “Who
art in heaven.” “Hallowed be thy name.” “Thy
kingdom come.” “Thy will be done. . . .” A few
of
us appreciated the quick Godward moment. Most
simply hoped that somehow the incantation might
help us win.
Hallowed be thy name. Between morning prayers
and
irregular rosaries in Catholic grade school,
and
then high school baseball — spring, summer, and
fall — I must have prayed that line hundreds of
times with little (if any) clue of its
significance. I might as well have been saying,
“Hollow be thy name.”
How Jesus Prayed
Put yourself there with the disciples when they
asked Jesus how to pray (Luke 11:1). How to
pray!
What would he say? Whatever comes next, these
will be some of the most important words in the
history of the world. No wonder Catholic school
boys and high school baseball players still
recite them two thousand years later. What a
tragedy, then, how often they amount to
meaningless repetition and “empty phrases” —
the
very thing Jesus warned us about in the
preamble
to his prayer. “When you pray, do not heap up
empty phrases as the Gentiles do” (Matthew
6:7).
And chief among the emptiness for many of us
has
been the one we’ve said the most.
After addressing God as Father, a monumental
development nearly impossible to overstate,
what
first request would Jesus make? What initial
petition would headline not just the prayer of
the Son of God to his Father but the model
prayer, the carefully chosen words designed by
the Christ to teach his disciples how to pray?
Could this not be one of the most important
pleas
(if not the single most important) any human
could utter? What Jesus says next will change
everything: “Hallowed be thy name.”
So, what does hallowed mean anyway?
Hallow What?
There has been no controversy or doubt, then or
now, about what Jesus said. Matthew and Luke
agree down to every Greek stroke: hagiasthētō
to
onoma sou (Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2). In English,
Wycliffe translated that line, in 1389, “Halwid
be thi name.” More than a century later, in
1526,
Tyndale did the same: “Halowed be thy name.”
The
King James Version followed suit in 1611:
“Hallowed be thy name.”
The verb (hagiazō, to treat as holy) appears 28
times in the New Testament, with its noun and
adjective forms occurring more than 300 times
(400 more in the Old Testament). Hallow, which
means to consecrate or set apart or honor as
holy, has fallen largely into disuse today.
Annually we mark Halloween, and sometimes we
refer to hallowed grounds, but we do not
hallow.
Not like we once did. As far back as 250 years
ago, in 1768, Benjamin Franklin sensed the
problem and rendered this paraphrase of the
line:
“May all revere thee.”
When Jesus begins his model prayer with
“hallowed
be your name,” what is he asking? Father, may
you
set your name apart from every other name.
Cause
your reputation to be esteemed and reverenced
and
treasured above all others. Glorify your name.
When we hear the Son of God pray like this, we
should not be surprised. He is not the first to
appeal to God’s name, to his honor and glory,
as
the rock-bottom ground for God’s action. Nor
should he be the last.
For His Name’s Sake
The legacy of longing to see God’s glory, and
petitioning God to see it, goes back at least
to
Moses, who prayed, courageously, “Please show
me
your glory” (Exodus 33:18). It was a bold
request. And he was not denied. God was pleased
to answer, and he put on display for Moses not
the fullness of his glory, but the back, and
that
glimpse proved to be plenty for the moment. And
so, God’s people learned to appeal to God for
his
name’s sake, for his glory, whether in general
(Psalm 109:21; 115:1), or, as in Psalm 23, for
guidance: “He leads me in paths of
righteousness
for his name’s sake” (Psalm 23:3; see also
Psalm
31:3).
In fact, God’s righteous concern for the
hallowing of his name is why, he says, he
delivered his people from Egypt. They were
sinners, and undeserving, and yet “he saved
them
for his name’s sake, that he might make known
his
mighty power” (Psalm 106:8). “I acted for the
sake of my name, that it should not be profaned
in the sight of the nations among whom they
lived, in whose sight I made myself known to
them
in bringing them out of the land of Egypt”
(Ezekiel 20:9; see also Ezekiel 20:14, 22).
Then
after Egypt, how would distressed Israelites
appeal to God for deliverance? “Help us, O God
of
our salvation, for the glory of your name;
deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your
name’s sake!” (Psalm 79:9; see also Psalm
143:11).
Not just deliverance when victimized, but also
pardon for sin. Whether in the Psalms: “For
your
name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is
great” (Psalm 25:11). Or in the prophets:
“Though
our iniquities testify against us, act, O Lord,
for your name’s sake; for our backslidings are
many; we have sinned against you” (Jeremiah
14:7;
see also Jeremiah 14:21). Or even in the
church:
“Your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake” (1
John 2:12).
When God’s people make their bottom-line plea
that he not destroy us for our sin, or forsake
us
in our faithlessness, we appeal, as Samuel did,
“for his great name’s sake” (1 Samuel 12:22).
What confidence do we have that his righteous
wrath will not consume rebels like us? There is
no greater ground imaginable for a sinner’s
rescue than God’s own hallowing of his name.
“For my name’s sake I defer my anger; for the
sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I
may not cut you off. . . . For my own sake, for
my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be
profaned? My glory I will not give to another.”
(Isaiah 48:9, 11)
Not for Your Sake
Then, after his people had gone into exile, why
would God restore them? Not because of their
good
ways or admirable deeds — but despite their
evil
ways and corrupt deeds — “for my name’s sake”
(Ezekiel 20:44). “It is not for your sake, O
house of Israel, that I am about to act [to
restore you], but for the sake of my holy name
.
. . . I will vindicate the holiness of my great
name” (Ezekiel 36:22–23). Likewise, it was to
God’s own name and glory that Daniel appealed
on
behalf of his people in exile (Daniel 9:15, 17,
18, 19).
At the height of Israel’s kingdom, Solomon had
prayed for the hallowing of God’s “great name .
.
. that all the peoples of the earth may know
your
name and fear you, as do your people Israel,
and
that they may know that this house that I have
built is called by your name” (1 Kings 8:41–43;
2
Chronicles 6:32–33). This is the same impulse
that one day found new-covenant expression in
the
apostle Paul, who sought “to bring about the
obedience of faith for the sake of his name
among
all the nations” (Romans 1:5). Why did Paul
have
to suffer so much? For the sake of Christ’s
name
(Acts 9:16).
And where, at bottom, do suffering Christians
find the spiritual and emotional resources to
persevere in persecution? “You are enduring
patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake,
and
you have not grown weary” (Revelation 2:3).
Why Jesus Died
“Hallowed be your name” was, indeed, no empty
phrase for Jesus. It not only headlined his
model
prayer for his disciples, but also his High
Priestly Prayer the night before he died.
“Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son
that
the Son may glorify you” (John 17:1). Foremost
in
his mind as he went to the cross was the “name”
(John 17:6, 11–12, 26) and “glory” (John 17:5,
22, 24) of his Father. He not only prayed and
lived, but he even gave himself up to torture
and
death for the hallowing of his Father’s name.
Far from being hollow, Jesus’s lead petition
taps
in to the very foundation and goal of all
history
— the rock-bottom commitment of God himself,
and
the very heart of his Son. Let’s not let old
English be lost on us who know our Bibles and
pray without ceasing, without pretense, and
without ignorance for the hallowing of our
Father’s name. It is his favorite prayer to
answer.
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