John Fischer The Catch

Our Father who art in heaven,

Hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread

And forgive us our debts

As we forgive our debtors

And lead us not into temptation

But deliver us from evil

For Thine is the kingdom

And the power

Power, a coveted prize in today’s world, often leads to polarization and conflict. This struggle for power is evident in many countries today, where rival factions fiercely compete to control the laws and direction of their nations.

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Our Father who art in heaven,

Hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread

And forgive us our debts

As we forgive our debtors

And lead us not into temptation

But deliver us from evil

For Thine is the kingdom

[Note: The earliest manuscripts of the New Testament do not include, “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen” (Matthew 6:13). We will include it for the following reasons:

1. We learned it this way.

2. We sing it this way.

3. It’s true. (His IS the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.)

4. Some biblical authority in the first century thought it was important.

5. “But deliver us from evil,” is a bad ending.]

So the prayer ends where it started, with praise, and a statement of how great God is. We will never outlive praise to our God. We will be singing and proclaiming His praises forever.

The kingdom is the realm over which a king rules. So where is that realm? It is everywhere. Think: the universe.

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Our Father who art in heaven,

Hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread

And forgive us our debts

As we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil.

This may be the most important part of the prayer. All of the newer translations agree that this should read, “but deliver us from the evil one,” so that tells us there is some level of personification there in the original language. The gist of what is being said here for us, then, is basically, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one who is behind it all.”

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Our Father who art in heaven,

Hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread

And forgive us our debts

As we forgive our debtors

And lead us not into temptation

This is a tough one to understand. We know that God does not tempt anyone (James 1:13), but we also know that temptation is all around us; we face it every day.   Shut your eyes and temptation plays with your imagination.

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Our Father who art in heaven,

Hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread

And forgive us our debts

As we forgive our debtors

Or as Luke 4:11 has it, “and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”

Pairing this portion of the Lord’s prayer with 1 John 1:6-10 helps us understand how we are to live together in community with Christ. A requirement of life with Christ includes an open acknowledgment of our sin. John says, “But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). (These are all present tense, continually happening verbs, by the way.) Living in the light means living where our sin is being continually revealed and forgiven.

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Our Father who art in heaven,

Hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread

And forgive us our debts…

Yes, we’re spending extra time on this one, because I don’t think we get it. At least I don’t. I can’t speak for you, but I can swear to you that I rarely get to the bottom of my own sin. Here’s how I can tell. There are people who I think are worse sinners than me, and people whose sin is worse than mine. Come on, when was the last time you thought, well at least I’m not that bad? Well, I’ve got news for you — for all of us — we are. We are that bad. In fact, we are worse than the worst we know.

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Our Father who art in heaven,

Hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread

And forgive us our debts…

I’m sticking with the King James Version because that’s how most of us have memorized this prayer. But “debt” is the part of the prayer that has more than one version… “debts,” “transgressions,” and in the Luke version of the prayer, it is simply, “Forgive us our sins.” I’m going to go with “sin” since that is the easiest to understand. Besides, “sin” needs a comeback.

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Our Father who art in heaven,

Hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

In our last Catch, we found out that we are the kingdom, because the kingdom lives in us; we carry the kingdom wherever we go, and we bring the kingdom to the world in the form of those we introduce to Jesus and those we disciple.

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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come…

Wait a minute… didn’t the kingdom of God come already? Didn’t Jesus announce that the kingdom was here — that it came with Him? “Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, ‘The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, “Here it is,” or “There it is,” because the kingdom of God is in your midst’” (Luke 17:20-21). The implication in what Jesus said here is that the kingdom of God was already there and they didn’t know it. They were waiting for a notable event and it’s already happened. In fact, they are talking to the kingdom of God right now and they don’t know it. The kingdom of God can’t be observed; it can only be experienced.

It’s a little like the Jesus Movement. It’s already here, but it’s not something that can be observed. No-one can say, “Here it is,” or “There it is.” But you’ll know it when you experience it. The kingdom of God came with Jesus. Jesus is the king, and where the king is, there is the kingdom.

So what does it mean for us to be praying for the kingdom to come? It means for Jesus to be known and experienced by more and more people. We pray for the kingdom to be expanded — for more people to come to know Jesus. To introduce  the gospel of welcome — grace turned outward — to everyone, everywhere is for the kingdom to come. We don’t only pray for this to happen; we are the kingdom, and we are here. So how are we doing? We not only pray for the kingdom of God to come, we bring it. We are the kingdom. So the big question is: what are you and I doing to make this part of the Lord’s prayer come true?