Hallowed Be Thy Name

Today we continue our series on the Lord’s Prayer.

Last week we examined what it means when we invoke the opening words of the prayer Jesus gave us: “Our Father.”

Before we move on to the second line of the prayer, let me say a couple last things about that opening statement.

The first is this…note what the very first word of the prayer is.

OUR.

Jesus gives this prayer to his disciples…and the followers who come after them, including you and me.

OUR Father.

This prayer is a community prayer. It unites us.

It reminds us that the work of the church, including prayer, is done alongside our brothers and sisters.

Even ones we don’t necessarily agree with or get along with…we are part of the same body.

Not just in our local church, but around the world.

Christians everywhere use this prayer.

Baptist…Methodists..Catholics…Presbyterians…Congregationalists…

…and at a time in history where we are so prone to separate ourselves from one another, so prone to criticize people who think and believe differently from us…what a wonderfully unifying word starts off the Lord’s Prayer.

OUR Father.

And secondly I’d say this…we talked last week about the fact that “Our Father” is a very intimate and personal way of opening the prayer…it speaks to the relationship we have with God.

But there’s more to that opening line, isn’t there? It’s not just “Our Father.”

It’s “Our Father…who art in heaven.”

And we may not realize it, but with that single line we are making a fairly profound theological statement.

In just six words we’re speaking to the intimate relationship we have with God: he’s our Father, he’s close to us…but we’re also reminded that he is in heaven…he’s far above us.

He is both near…and far.

Theologians have some pretty fancy words to describe these concepts. They speak of the…

(SLIDE)

Immanence of God (and the)

Transcendence of God

Transcendence meaning “above” and “beyond.”

God is above everything he has created. He is great, he is matchless…he is beyond our understanding as mere mortals.

We heard echoes of this understanding of God in our Old Testament reading for today:

(SLIDE)

“For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods.

For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.

Splendour and majesty are before him; strength and joy are in his dwelling place.”

--1 Chronicles 16:25-27 (NIV)

But even as we acknowledge that God is far above and beyond us, we also believe that God is personal and knowable and present to us as his children.

The words we heard in Colossians communicate that kind of closeness with God, as Paul talks about the peace of Christ dwelling with us, the message of Christ filling us with knowledge of God...and Paul encourages us to be in fellowship with God as we worship and fellowship together by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Immanence. God very near and present to us.

And of course, the ultimate understanding of the immanence of God is the incarnation of Jesus: God literally coming to us and being one of us, living among us and experiencing everything it means to be human.

It can seem contradictory, but Christians believe God is both immanent and transcendent, and we acknowledge that in the opening line of the Lord’s prayer:

Our Father…who art in heaven.

And then we find ourselves with this second line of the prayer:

(SLIDE)

“Hallowed be thy name.”

And almost immediately we are into language that for many people makes no sense at all.

Let’s be honest for a moment…how many of you use the term “Hallow” on a regular basis?

Actually…we do use it quite a lot every year for at least a couple of weeks towards the end of October…

…when we celebrate Hallow—een.

And I’m sure that pretty much everyone who references Halloween doesn’t realize they’re using ancient language that comes from the church.

“Hallow” means to honour something as holy.

And Halloween is an abbreviation of “All Hallow’s Eve,” because in the ancient church on the first of November…congregations would gather for a special service honouring those who had served Christ faithfully and were now in his presence…those servants of Jesus that in some traditions are called “saints.”

In that service you would proclaim those servants of Christ as sacred and venerated, you would “hallow” them.

So that service became known as “All Hallow’s Day,” and then the day before became known as “All Hallow’s Eve.”

And it all has to do with proclaiming something, in this case the dearly departed servants of the church, as being sacred and holy.

That’s what we do in this petition of the Lord’s Prayer: we are proclaiming God’s name as sacred and holy.

That’s something even the Jewish sceptics of Jesus’ time could’ve gotten behind, because the Jewish people definitely understood the name of God to be a sacred thing.

God’s name, after all, had been revealed to Moses at the burning bush, and the name he gave to Moses, Yahweh, was so holy and sacred that in Jesus’ day it was considered blasphemy to even say that name out loud.

As Christians we no longer believe that. We believe that because of Jesus that barrier between humanity and God has been removed, and we are free to worship God with total freedom and intimacy.

In fact, that’s really what we’re doing with this line of the prayer: we’re worshipping God.

Think about that for a second.

The first thing we do in the Lord’s Prayer after the opening words…is worship.

We proclaim God’s name is holy.

That’s an act of worship.

Again…listen to how that plays out in the text we heard from 1 Chronicles:

(SLIDE)

“Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done.

Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts.

Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.”—1 Chronicles 16:8-10 (NIV)

All throughout Scripture we find this link between the name of God…and the worship of God.

Again, it goes all the way back to Moses, who worshipped at the burning bush where God revealed his name.

And then when God delivers the Law to Moses…what’s the Third Commandment he gives?

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”

That commandment is too often reduced to a prohibition about swearing, but it’s more than that.

It’s a recognition that the name of God is sacred and special and worthy of honour.

It’s worthy…to be hallowed.

Why?

Well, first and foremost simply because of the greatness of God.

God’s name is great because God is great.

We’ve been singing all morning: How Great Thou Art, How Great is Our God…

God is supreme. God is mighty. There is nothing and no one greater than God.

That alone is enough to declare his name as being holy and sacred…hallowed.

But then we go even deeper with it and we find another layer that leads us to worship.

God’s name is not just a reflection of his greatness…it’s a revelation of his love for us.

Think about this for a second.

Have you ever been in a situation where you chose, deliberately, not to reveal your name to someone?

Maybe you’re on the phone with some telemarketing salesman…or maybe you’re at a gathering of strangers…whatever.

And for some reason you choose not to give them your name.

Why?

When we do that…we do it because we don’t want to be known.

For whatever reason, we want to remain anonymous.

And yet…the witness of Scripture is that this transcendent God who made the universe…wants us to know who he is.

And one of the ways he does that…is by revealing his name.

Again…first to Moses as Yahweh.

But then supremely in the person of Jesus…who we also know as Emmanuel.

Which means? (PAUSE)

God with us.

The immanent God.

To know God’s name is part of knowing him.

And so we hallow God’s name…we proclaim it as sacred and holy because his name is part of his self-revelation to us.

That’s a huge part of what we do in worship.

We celebrate that the God of the universe has come to us and revealed himself to us.

The opening hymn we sang this morning has a beautiful way of expressing this.

It starts off with these words:

(SLIDE)

“Immortal, invisible, God only wise,

In light inaccessible hid from our eyes.”

That’s the God that we worship…immortal, invisible, wise…seemingly inaccessible.

And yet is that really the case? Because we find these words in the final verse:

“Great Father of Glory, pure Father of Light

Thine angels adore Thee, all veiling their sight;

All laud we would render, O help us to see:

’Tis only the splendor of light hideth Thee.”

What they hymn writer is saying here is this:

“God may seem inaccessible and distant…but that is only because he is so full of glory and splendour.”

And so the hymn itself becomes a prayer:

“Lord help us to see…it’s not that you’re distant. It’s that you’re magnificent.”

“And you have chosen to reveal that magnificence to us.”

The transcendent…has become immanent.

And one of the ways he has done that is by giving us…his name.

That’s why we sing…as we did earlier:

Name above all names…you are worthy of all praise.

My heart will sing…how great is our God.

God’s name sits at the very heart of our worship, because his name reminds us how much he wants to be in relationship with us.

He calls us…he invites us into that fellowship.

Not as a stranger…but as our loving Father, whose name we know and cherish.

(PAUSE)

But it’s not just about relationship.

A name is about connection…but it’s also about reputation.

It’s so true in business, isn’t it?

The integrity of your name is supremely important.

And when our good name is sullied or besmirched…it can be hard to recover from that.

(DOCTOR SAMUEL MUDD)

If you want a more recent example of how the integrity of a name can be lost forever…just take a look at how many people have been named “Adolf” in the past 80 years.

As it says in the book of Proverbs:

(SLIDE)

“A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.”—Proverbs 22:1 (NIV)

Our name…is linked to our reputation.

And this is actually another part of what we’re praying in this line from the Lord’s prayer.

We are worshipping and we are celebrating God’s giving of his name to his people…in that sense we are saying that God’s name is already holy and sacred and hallowed.

But we are also saying…Lord let your name be hallowed in all the earth, even in the places right now where people don’t know your name.

In that sense…this part of the prayer isn’t just about worship.

It’s about mission and evangelism and the spreading of God’s kingdom.

What we’re also praying with this second line, is this:

Lord let your name be sacred and set-apart and known as holy…in every corner of the earth.

Let the truth about who you are…let the knowledge that you are a powerful and compassionate who God who loves your people, who cares for them, provides for them, forgives them, and transforms them…let the reputation of your good and glorious name…reverberate around the world.

Hallowed be your name.

Friends, you and I can’t make God any greater, any more holy than he already is.

But we can pray that the knowledge of his greatness, the truth about his holiness, becomes more and more known in the world.

We can pray that more and more people come to know the truth about this transcendent God who has become immanent…that they would know the very God who created everything that is...created them, loves them, and wants them to know how special and how deeply loved they are.

I believe with all my heart that’s part of what we’re praying when we say, “Hallowed be thy name.”

It ties in with what we’ll be talking about next week… “Thy kingdom come.”

But for today let’s just sit and rest with these profound truths that come from the words, “Hallowed be thy name.”

Let’s sit with and celebrate the fact that the almighty God of the universe…has given us his name. He’s called us into relationship.

That is worthy of worship and praise in and of itself.

And let’s also commit ourselves to praying for this glorious truth to be known by those who don’t yet know it.

That they would come to see, along with all God’s people, the depth of God’s love for them.

(TRANSITION TO PRAYER)