Give Us Our Daily Bread
Scripture Texts: Matthew 6:11, 25-34
The people in the first century marveled and were amazed at Jesus’ teaching. They said it was different from any of the teaching of their teachers and the rabbis. When we ask Jesus a question or ask Him to teach us something we had better be prepared for something completely different, something we have never heard before.
The Lord’s Prayer is like that. It’s huge. It’s galactic in size and scope. This prayer is like the Himalayas and each petition is a mountain of divine insight into holy things.
If this prayer is the Himalayas then the first petition is Mt. Everest. Jesus starts out teaching us to ask “the most important person in the universe to do the most important act in the universe” (John Piper), which is to make His name hallowed, to make His name great and honored, revered and respected and only spoken highly of.
Two of the ways for God to be most hallowed are for His kingdom to come, both in our hearts and in our history, and for His revealed will to be obeyed and for His secret will to be accepted.
Jesus is giving us a vision for prayer that transforms our prayers. Most of our prayers are like asking for mud pies and Jesus wants us to pray for chocolate and truffles. Too many of our prayers are stuck in a rut and Jesus wants us to soar. Too often our prayers are stall bread and He is holding out fresh manna straight from heaven.
This is true even when we come to the second set of three petitions, the three petitions that deal with the stuff of life and our personal needs. As normal or routine as these petitions seem to us over all the years of use, they are anything but normal and routine. Familiarity may have bred some contempt or casualness, but there is nothing casual here. Even this first petition has profound implications about God and our lives.
Many say the prayer shifts from being God-ward to man-ward, or from vertical to horizontal. I think it’s better to say that it shifts from being God-centered to being God-dependent, the focus is always on our Father who is in heaven.
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