For most modern Western Christians, another person’s
name is rarely more than collections of syllables, a
convenient way of distinguishing one individual from another.
To be sure, hearing another’s name can bring to mind that
individual’s attributes and characteristics. And we may
intentionally choose Biblical names for our children. But,
most of the time, we attach little import to the name itself.
The attitude was very different in Biblical times, when
people’s names often were endowed with considerable
significance. Consider Samuel, literally “asked of God;”
Isaiah’s son Shear-Yashub, “a remnant will return;”
and Jacob, “he deceives,” whom God renamed Israel, “he
struggles with God.”
Even more important to God’s people was God’s name,
which was virtually indistinguishable from the person of God
(Mal. 1:6; Isa. 29:23; Ezek. 36:23; John 12:28; 17:6). So,
when Jesus taught his first disciples how to pray, they
understood names in a way that largely has been lost to us
today.
Recovering this Biblical understanding will add an important
dimension to our practice of prayer and afford us a deeper
appreciation for why Jesus said that, when we pray, our first
request of God is to be “Hallowed be thy name.”
Names and
relationships
Unexpectedly encountering God at a burning bush in the
desert, Moses asked, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and
say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’
and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall
I tell them?” (Ex. 3:13).
The question, as Brevard Childs notes, “contains both a
request for information and an explanation of its
significance. … By requesting his name, they seek to
learn his new relationship to them.”
In response to Moses’ request, “God said to Moses, ‘I
AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I
AM has sent me to you.’ God also said to Moses, ‘Say
to the Israelites, “The Lord, the God of your fathers –
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob –
has sent me to you.” This is my name forever, the name by
which I am to be remembered from generation to generation’”
(Ex. 3:14-15).
This exchange teaches God’s people a lesson that
is crucial to our understanding of prayer: We know God only
because God has made himself known to us. God has given us his
name, which we are to remember, so that we may know who he is
and how he relates to us and, in turn, who we are, and how we
are to relate to him.
In Hebrew, the name God revealed to Moses is
Yahweh,
from the verb “to be.” In this self-revelation, God
tells us that we are not relating to an abstract concept, one
that we have named with a series of syllables. Rather, as God’s
people we are in communion with a personal being, the very
source of being, who desires a relationship with us.
Unfortunately, as Moses soon would learn, God’s people
are easily tempted to pursue and pray to other gods, which are
not deities at all but simply inanimate aspects of creation.
Jesus knew how these idolatrous tendencies disrupt and distort
our relationships with the living God. So, he taught his
disciples to call God “Father” and to start their
prayers by honoring God’s name.
Our priorities
Asking God to hallow his own name does not, of course,
suggest that God can make his name more holy than it eternally
is. Rather, this petition helps us bring our priorities in
line with God’s.
Shortly after he records the Lord’s Prayer, Matthew
shows us Jesus’ priorities, “Seek first [God’s]
kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be
given to you as well” (Matt. 6:33).
The natural tendency is to put ourselves first, to assume
that we are at the center – not only of our own lives,
but of all life. A vivid illustration of this temptation is
found very early in Scripture, where God’s human creation
decided to “build ourselves a city, with a tower that
reaches to the heavens, so that we may
make a name for
ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole
earth” (Gen. 11:4).
What happened, of course, was just the opposite. The building
project failed. The Bible does not record the name of a single
individual involved. God confused the language and scattered
the locations of those who sought to make a name for
themselves.
To begin our prayers by asking God to hallow his own name is
to subvert the expectations of our culture, which insist that
we must make a name for ourselves. If hallowing God’s
name is not yet an instinctive part of our prayers, we can use
the Lord’s Prayer as a guide. Donald Williams suggests a
process that might go something like this:
“Hallowed be thy name. May your name be set apart,
honored, revered and respected as holy – by me and by
others.
By me: Is there anything in my life which
would dishonor rather than glorify it? As you point those
things out to me, I confess them, repent of them and ask your
help in overcoming them.
By others: I am grieved when
I hear your name being taken in vain, when people do not
respect you in general. How may I live so that my association
with you will inspire others to reverence you as I do?”
Christian maturity consists, in large measure, of overcoming
the temptation to put ourselves at the center of our lives and
our prayers. As Tom Smail writes, when the center of our
prayer “ceases to be ‘Lord, bless me’ and has
become ‘Bless the Lord,’ when we begin to praise God
for his grace, power and love as Father, then the name of the
Father is being hallowed by being made first and central.”
Resisting
anonymity
“God has a name,” Walter Luthi writes. “Nameless,
anonymous letters, letters without signatures, are usually
vulgar. But God is no writer of anonymous letters. God puts
his name to everything that he does, effects and says. God has
no need to fear the light of day. The Devil loves anonymity,
but God has a name.”
In the words of Jan Milic Lochman, the first petition of the
Lord’s Prayer “resists anonymity.” It resists
secular impulses to reduce human origins to a biochemical
accident and human life to impersonal processes. It does so by
reminding us of the personal name of God. And in so doing,
this opening request also “protects our humanity.”
God spoke wonderful words of comfort to his people through
his prophet, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have
called you by name; you are mine” (Isa. 43:1). God has
given his name and he remains faithful to it. Moreover,
Lochman writes, God has lovingly given each of us “a
lasting name, the identity which is grounded by God and before
God and which is inalienable … We do not dissolve into
namelessness. Before God we are inexchangeable.
We do not need to “make a name for ourselves”
because God’s name, God’s person and presence, is
always available to us. Again quoting Lochman, “It is
sobering and yet also comforting to know that other names do
not save. Above all, my own name does not save. We do not
stand or fall by the greatness of our name. We stand (and do
not fall) by the greatness of the name of God. Free, then,
from the compulsion and delusion of those who would make a
name, in the liberty of those who are called children of God,
we pray, ‘Hallowed be thy name.’”
For
Discussion
1.
Why are names important?
2. What is the
significance of God revealing his name to his people?
3. What are some
things that can happen to people who try to make a name
for themselves?
4. What can we
learn about prayer from the fact that Jesus taught his
disciples to begin their prayers with the petition "hallowed
be thy name?"
|
|
Additional Resources
Brevard Childs, The
Book of Exodus (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974);
Jan Milic Lochman, The Lord’s Prayer (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990); Tom Smail, The Forgotten
Father: Rediscovering the Heart of the Christian Gospel
(Carlisle, England: Paternoster Press, 1996); Donald T.
Williams, The Disciples’ Prayer: An Intimate
Phrase by Phrase Journey through the Lord’s Prayer
(Camp Hill, Pa.: Christian Publications, 1999).
|