Holy Week Prep | Welcoming Jesus' Reign Through Bold Prayer

Bible Project: Psalm 8 Image for Praying the Bold Prayer Jesus Taught Us to Pray

In the Anglo-Catholic order of worship, the priest sometimes introduces the Lord's Prayer with the words, "Now, as our Savior Christ hath taught us, we are bold to say ... "

The word bold is worth thinking about. We do well not to pray the prayer lightly. It takes guts to pray it at all. We can pray it in the unthinking and perfunctory way we usually do only by disregarding what we are saying.

'Thy will be done' is what we are saying. That is the climax of the first half of the prayer. We are asking God to be God. We are asking God to do not what we want but what God wants. We are asking God to make manifest the holiness that is now mostly hidden, to set free in all its terrible splendor the devastating power that is now mostly under restraint. 

'Thy Kingdom come . . . on earth' is what we are saying. And if that were suddenly to happen, what then? What would stand and what would fall? Who would be welcomed in and who would be thrown the Hell out? Which if any of our most precious visions of what God is and of what human beings are would prove to be more or less on the mark and which would turn out to be phony as three-dollar bills? 

Boldness indeed. To speak those words is to invite the tiger out of the cage, to unleash a power that makes atomic power look like a warm breeze.

You need to be bold in another way to speak the second half (of the Lord's Prayer). Give us. Forgive us. Don't test us. Deliver us ...

If it takes guts to face the omnipotence that is God's, it takes perhaps no less to face the impotence that is ours.

We can do nothing without God. We can have nothing without God. Without God we are nothing.

It is only the words 'Our Father' that make the prayer bearable. If God is indeed something like a father, then as something like children maybe we can risk approaching Him anyway.

+ Frederick Buechner

Consideration: Take 3 minutes of time today to listen to and pray this prayer with Syriac men, women, and children, beautifully sung in the language (Aramaic) Jesus Christ taught His disciples to pray:

+ "Abun D'Bashmayo" (The Lord's Prayer)

Additional posts on The Lord's Prayer ("Our Father"):

+ Our Father | Praying the Lord's Prayer w/ Rembrandt van Rijn

+ In This Together Day by Day | Praying Jesus' Abundant Prayer

+ Disruptive Prayer | Jesus' Way for Kingdom Breakthrough

Christ is all,

+ Rev. Mike "Sully" Sullivan

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