May Your Kingdom Come, May Your Will Be Done

In the opening words of the Lord's Prayer as recorded in Matthew 6:9-13, we read - "Our Father in Heaven: may Your name be kept holy, may Your Kingdom come, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." This is often prayed out loud as five separate, disconnected phrases:

Our Father who art in Heaven (pause);
Hallowed be Thy name (pause);
Thy Kingdom come (pause);
Thy will be done (pause);
On earth, as it is in heaven.

But these archaic words and pauses cause us to lose the meaning: at the time the King James Bible was translated, "Thou," "Thee" and "Thy" weren't words expressing distance and awe, they were (and still are) second-person singular pronouns expressing love, trust and intimacy. And we're expressing our desire and assent that God's name - His person - would be kept set apart and holy, that His Kingdom would come and His will would be done on earth just as it is in heaven. What does it mean to keep God's name set apart and holy? In the Old Testament, the nation of Israel was called and set apart to be holy, just as the Lord is holy: "You shall be holy to me: for I, the Lord, am holy, and have set you apart from the peoples" (Leviticus 20:26).

We often say that Judaism and Christianity are "monotheistic" religions, but that is not quite accurate: they are "henotheistic", which means "one true God among many so-called gods." in Ezra 7:11-26 in the Old Testament, Artaxerxes, king of Persia, decreed that the temple of "your God" - the God of the Israelites - should be rebuilt at Artaxerxes' expense. Perhaps King Artaxerxes was simply covering all bases, hoping to appease as many gods as he could. But Ezra makes it clear that the Lord is "the God of heaven" (v. 11), He is the one true God, set apart from and far greater all the other so-called gods of the pagans.

When St. Paul was in Athens, he visited Mars Hill where statues stood to the various Greek gods, and like Artaxerxes, perhaps in order to cover all their bases they had a statue labeled "To An Unknown God" - just in case they missed one. St. Paul said to these Athenians: "You men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious in all things. For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I announce to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, He, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn't dwell in temples made with hands..." (Acts 17:22b-24a).

When we don't set apart God's name and His person as absolutely holy, we begin to "use God" as a means for our own ends. The pagans often used their gods to attain victory in battle, or to assign legitimacy to their rule. This is exactly the opposite of what Jesus Christ taught us in the Lord's Prayer: in order that God's name, His person, would be kept set apart and holy, we must desire and assent that His Kingdom would come and His will would be done on earth just as it is in heaven. To "use God" for any other purpose, as a means to make a decent living, or to gain respect among our peers, or for a government to gain and maintain power over its people or other peoples, is nothing short of blasphemy. Our highest desire should be that God's Kingdom would come and His will would be done on earth just as it is in heaven.

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 08 Jun. 2014.)