kneel in wonder at heaven touching earth

Your kingdom come

When Jesus told us to pray, “your kingdom come”, he was speaking about his future messianic reign on the earth. Throughout Scripture, the story of the Bible looks forward to the return of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who will rule in righteousness when the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ (Revelation 11:15).

This concern for God’s rule on the earth is basic to our view of history. The German theologian, Joseph Wittig said that a person’s biography should begin with their death, rather than their birth. His argument was that we measure the contribution of life by its end, not its beginning. And that is how we should think about history.

We sometimes wonder if history is going anywhere. Is it simply a set of repeated events going around in cycles; heading towards nothing but oblivion? Many famous people have dismissed history over the years — one memorable one being Henry Ford’s summing up of history as “bunk”.

But history is heading somewhere in the Bible — the return of Jesus Christ. That light shines before us, and the darker the age, the brighter seems the glow.

When we pray, “your kingdom come”, we’re looking forward to that time when God’s messianic kingdom will be established by Jesus’ return to earth, as prophesied throughout the Old Testament. We direct our gaze, as we pray, to the day when the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ.

When we pray, “your kingdom come”, we’re also saying something else. We’re saying that we shall submit our will to God’s will. It follows that we want God to work his will out in our lives now, if we want him to rule over all people in the future.

When we pray, “your kingdom come”, we’re acknowledging God’s right to rule all people — including us. If we desire it for others, we must desire it for ourselves too. We shouldn’t pray for God’s rule over others, unless we honestly desire his rule over ourselves.

When we pray, “your kingdom come”, we’re praying for the second coming of Christ now, not at some convenient point in the future. Nothing in our lives should take precedence over his coming. That’s what we mean when we pray, “your kingdom come”.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

This is the fourth post in a series offering a reflection based on each of the clauses of the Lord’s Prayer

Hallowed be your name

A name was extremely significant in Hebrew thought. Names weren’t chosen by parents because they thought the initials would look good on their luggage. Neither did they choose a name because it reminded them of their Uncle Albert or Aunt Victoria. When they chose a child’s name they hoped it would embody the personality, characteristic, or character they wanted to see developed in the child.

We see in the New Testament when someone’s life or outlook changed, in times of crisis, often his name was changed to match. When Jesus first met up with Peter he was called Simon, and was a shifty and undependable person. But Jesus changed his name to Peter, which means “rock”. It took a while, following his renaming, for Peter to live up to the new name, but eventually the shifting sand was changed into rock.

We read in Psalm 9:10, “And those who know your name put their trust in you”. The psalmist was saying that those who knew God’s character and power would put their trust in him, not that those who could pronounce his name would put their trust in him.

When we pray, “hallowed be your name”, we’re talking about the character and person of God. To hallow means “to set apart, to make special, to sanctify”. When we pray, “hallowed be your name”, we’re praying that God will be set apart in our prayers in such a way that it will be clear that we reverence him; we’re praying that God will be God to us.

This is the third post in a series offering a reflection based on each of the clauses of the Lord’s Prayer