Last week in our worship services we sang the Lord’s Prayer to end the service. Our Choir Director led out in a strong baritone voice, the organist literally pulled out all the stops and we let loose with a strong rendition of the classic Mallote version. By the time we got to the end of the prayer/song, many of us had goose bumps.
It was a nice moment. An Inspiring moment. And it's one that I know we'll have over and over again.
But let’s be clear about something: The purpose of "The Lord's Prayer" is not inspiration.
In fact, I think Jesus' actual teaching here is one of the most sobering and uninspiring challenges to the Christian faith. We just don't often recognize it.
You see, long ago, the church edited Jesus’ words so that they would fit better in worship. When we say or sing the Lord’s Prayer, we go from “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil” to the stirring finale, “Thine is the Kingdom, power and glory forever! Amen!” It’s a true affirmation, a statement of faith and a glorious thing to affirm—but it’s not actually in the Bible.
But when Jesus actually taught these words in the Sermon on the Mount, he said:
forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.
And then added this phrase:
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Sheesh. Not exactly a goose-bump-causing finish. According to Jesus (and this is so important that it is the only part of the prayer that he repeats a second time) we must offer forgiveness to others as generously as we need it ourselves.
Forgiveness. One author described the challenge of forgiveness as the emotional equivalent of “Everest without oxygen, Wimbledon without a racket, La Scala without a score.” Forgiveness is a most difficult task. Forgiveness is not excusing, it is not dismissing, it is not understanding. It is giving up the resentment and right to revenge when someone has committed a culpable act that harmed us. It is letting go of what we have against someone because of the love of God. This is the most practical point of our Kingdom piety: Becoming a person who is like the One who would cry from the cross, "Father forgive them..."
In every area of life we are to pray—like Jesus—so that in every area of our lives we become like Jesus—the one who lived this prayer. Jesus our older brother who taught us to call God, Father. Jesus, our Lord who brought forth the Kingdom.
Through his teaching on prayer Jesus is teaching us the way to be transformed more and more like him. And this is seen nowhere more clearly than this one point that Jesus goes back and underlines after the teaching on prayer.
My friends, let us never forget that we who were invited to live with Jesus in his Kingdom are not the innocent, but the rebellious creatures who ruined the creation and the Kingdom in the first place. We are those who are worthy of judgment, who by our sins and actions have rightly earned rejection and condemnation.
When Jesus invites us into his Kingdom, he is inviting the very ones who rebelled against the King. He is inviting those of us who have done to turn from our ways of living without God and to now live under his reign and rule. Jesus then invites us into a deep spiritual relationship with him that will absolute transform our lives. Prayer is about making us Kingdom people who are like Jesus in every way, the hallmark of our lives being our forgiving others the way we have been forgiven.
Next Post: So, if this isn’t even a prayer at all, but is, in fact, Jesus’ teaching on “private praying” (Matthew 6:1) Why do we most often say it as a prayer, publicly?
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