Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
You probably know the rest. These are some of the most familiar words found in the Scriptures, perhaps in the whole English language, but we hear them so often I think most of us are desensitized to their significance. I can speak for myself: I mostly associate what is commonly called, “The Lord’s Prayer,” with ceremonialism and heedless recitation. When I recall it, it’s easy to slip into the comfortable rhythm of the words—feeling them in the mouth rather than hearing them in the ears. But if we do open our ears to them, there is much to be gleaned.
Take the first two words: “Our Father.” These words are representative of the prayer as a whole (Indeed, it is widely called, The “Our Father.”), but they are also emblematic of the Christian message as a whole. For when we consider them in the light of other Scriptures, we find deep and multifaceted meaning.
Let us start broadly, with Paul’s sermon on Mars’ Hill in Athens:
God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.
The Acts of the Apostles (Ch. 17, v. 24-29)
Here, we learn that, in one sense, God is the Father of all humanity: He gives us life, he sustains us, he’s the reason we exist. This is what God does. He gives to all “all things,” so he needs nothing from us: No temples to dwell in, no relics by which to be invoked, no icons or images to embody him, no gifts to support him, etc. Moreover, he is near to and accessible to each individual person where they are. Why? Because he is our Father.
But when Jesus Christ came, he taught about another kind of divine fatherhood:
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise upon the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
The Gospel according to Matthew (Ch. 5, v. 43-45)
Here, our Lord reminds us of the special kind of father-child relationship between God and the children of Israel. “And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn[,]” we read in the Book of Exodus (Ch. 4, v. 22). Because of this, Israel had a mission, and Jesus Christ preached and personified that mission: To show the world the proper way to love God. Expanding on the teachings of Christ, Paul says (in his Epistle to the Galatians: Ch. 5, v. 14), “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” We might ask, How can this be if Christ said (in the Gospel according to Matthew: Ch. 22, v. 37-38) that the “first and great” commandment is to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind[?]” The apostle John unifies these teachings in his First Epistle (Ch. 4, v. 21): “And this commandment have we from him [i.e., God], That he who loveth God love his brother also.” In the context of the Old Testament and Judaism more broadly, a “brother” traditionally meant a fellow Jew, but the law also taught (in the Book of Leviticus: Ch. 19, v. 34), “But the stranger [i.e., Gentile, foreigner, non-Jewish person] that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” God’s central charge to the children of Israel was to love one another—to love all people and, in so doing, to love God. In the Gospel according to Matthew (Ch. 25, v. 34-46), Jesus teaches that what someone does to “the least of these my brethren” they do to himself—to the Son of Man. Again, Christ’s “brethren” here are specifically Jewish, and the teaching has a specific significance in the context in which Jesus is speaking, but ethically, devotionally, and in accordance with the law, one might fairly apply this principle to all people. Further, in the Gospel according to Mark (Ch. 9, v. 37), we find a similar principle expressed more broadly and in perfect simplicity as Christ draws his disciples’ attention to a small child: “Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me.” In his teachings, Christ reminded Israel—and all of us—that to receive any child of man in the name of the Son of Man is to receive the Son of Man, to love humanity properly is to love God properly.
And when Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose again, he proclaimed another kind of divine fatherhood: An adoptive fatherhood, a relationship to God neither innate nor earned but freely offered—an act of perfect love. This relationship is not something we are born with, nor is it something partial, conditional, or specific to the people of Israel—acquired through certain actions of the divine law; it is the gift of God in Jesus Christ. In the teachings of Christ, we learn how humanity should love God; in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, we learn how God has chosen to love humanity. Its sins and sorrows he has taken upon himself; Isaiah the prophet writes of Christ:
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
The Book of Isaiah (Ch. 53, v. 4-5)
In the teachings of Christ, we are reminded that the Jewish people have a special claim to God as their Father through virtuous action, through the covenant of the law; in the work of Christ, we learn that God lays claim on us all, Jew and Gentile alike, as children—completely. He claims not merely our virtues but also our vices, our infirmities, and our very deaths. All these things he takes into himself and nullifies through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through Christ, our Father’s love is unconditional and his forgiveness is comprehensive; like the Prodigal Son in the story Christ recounted, all we have to do is recognize our Father’s love and turn to him for refuge—this is what it is to believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Yes, we may continue in a state of alienation, we may refuse to believe that God could love or forgive us, we may refuse to believe that we need God’s love or forgiveness: If we do so, we suffer unnecessarily; we damn ourselves. The word of the apostle John (in the Gospel according to John: Ch. 1, v. 12) is this: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” And the apostle Paul answers to Christians likewise (in his Epistle to the Galatians: Ch. 3, v. 26): “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”
The cry, “Our Father,” is not just the start of the Lord’s Prayer; it is the proper start of every prayer. It expresses in a word all we may know of God—that he is how we came to be here, that he shows us how we should be while we are here, and that, through Jesus Christ, he offers us a home with him when our time here is done. It is a humbling honor—as when any child calls out to its father. To call, the child must recognize that it is a child, helpless and dependent, but in response to that acknowledgment, it gains all the support, all the protection, all the love that it needs. In these words, we confess our need and God’s provision—we find our way home again.
(Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash)
Comparing Notes 