It’s been some time since my last Substack entry.
Hello again!
This one is stimulated by some recent reading and mediation on Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer as I prepare to preach on the text in a couple of weeks. I want to suggest that Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer (11:1–13) has an Exodus framework. I first expressed the idea in a brief Twitter thread here and I want to unpack it a bit more and work out what the implications might be.
At the outset, the disciples ask Jesus, ‘Teach us to pray’. This is curious in and of itself. The disciples have observed that John the Baptist taught his disciples to pray, and similarly, they want Jesus to teach them how to pray. Yet these are people who pray on the daily. They would have prayed the Shema, they would have prayed the psalms, they would have prayed in the synagogue and when they visited the temple, etc. They are pray-ers who want to be shown how to pray in the manner of Jesus. And so…
Father
Jesus begins with: ‘Father’. This is significant. It’s covenantal language that goes back to Exodus. Moses is to tell Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son’ (Exod 4:22; cf. 2 Sam 7 re. King David. H/T @CarmenJoyImes). Jesus is teaching the disciples to pray in covenantal language. For Luke’s audience—perhaps largely gentile audience—it is an invitation into the covenantal narrative of Israel. That they, as members of renewed Israel through the Spirit (so, v. 13), may also now call upon God as their Father may view themselves as his children. They may approach with child-like confidence, knowing he’s a good Dad who loves his kids.
Hallowed be your name
As Yahweh prepares Israel for their exodus from Egypt his concern is that he is worshiped and that his name be known. So, ‘Let my people go that they might worship me!’ (Exod 5:1; 7:16; 8:1, 8, 20; 9:1, 13, etc.), and ‘Then you/they will know that I am Yahweh’ (Exod 6:7; 7:5; 14:4, 18, etc. H/T @StephenLShead). Moreover, in Ezekiel, the hallowing/holiness of God’s name is tied to Israel’s cleansing with water (i.e., forgiveness) and the giving of the Spirit (36:22–23, 25, 27, respectively), all in the context of a ‘second exodus’ (36:24).
[22] “Therefore say to the Israelites, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: It is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. [23] I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I am proved holy through you before their eyes. [24] “‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. [25] I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. [26] I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. [27] And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. (Ezek 36:22–27; cf. Luke 11:2, 4, 13).
Your kingdom come
Having fled Egypt through the Red Sea, the Lord, in partial fulfilment of his promises to Abraham, commissions the Israelites to be his holy priestly nation. ‘Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation’ (Exod 19:4–6). God’s kingdom comes when his reign is demonstrated through a people who are hallowed/holy as he is. The disciples are to pray for that reality to be manifest in and through their collective lives. As God is holy, they too are to be holy. Together, the prayer for God’s name to be hallowed and his kingdom to come is a prayer to make himself known through his people (see Edwards’ commentary [Pillar] on this). God’s kingdom is present in Jesus and subsequently, through the Spirit, will be present in the disciples.
Give us each day our daily bread
This line is reminiscent of the Lord providing manna from heaven as the Israelites remained in the wilderness, ‘Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day”’ (Exod 16:4). As the Israelites await their entrance to the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey, they are dependent on the Lord for ‘daily bread’. Similarly, as disciples of Jesus await his return and the promised New Creation, they too are dependent for ‘daily bread’. Trusting the Father for ‘daily bread’ is how life is lived between the promise of the believer’s heavenly inheritance and the fulfilment of that promise.
Forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us
Come Exodus 32, things for Israel have gone pear-shaped. Having been rescued from Egypt and awaiting God’s word, they fall into catastrophic idolatry. They must be forgiven, and so Moses intercedes for them, ‘But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written’ (Exod 32:32), and again, ‘Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance’ (Exod 34:9).
Significant here is that one cannot claim God’s forgiveness if they are not willing to extend forgiveness to others (cf. Matt 18:21–35). If God’s name is to be hallowed and his kingdom is to come, forgiveness must blaze the trail.
And lead us not into testing/temptation
This final part of Jesus prayer seems counter-intuitive, and yet it is both a striking admission of vulnerability and guards against triumphalism (see Garland’s commentary in the ZECNT series). This insight dovetails with Paul’s own words in 1 Corinthians 10 which draw upon the Exodus narrative, holding up Israel’s response as a warning to the overly triumphalist church in Corinth.
In sum then, the Lord's Prayer is an invitation into the covenantal narrative of Israel through Jesus, in which one addresses God as Father which is to say, as a son and heir. It is a framework within which one prays as a member of God’s people of the new exodus who live, as it were, in the wilderness between the promise of the New Creation and its full inheritance when Jesus returns.
So what?
Practically what might all this mean for us who hear Jesus’ words today? Here are some further thoughts, though they are not yet fully formed and worked out:
Jesus is praying as a Son to his Father, and he is inviting his disciples to the same. Yet, it is the Holy Spirit that makes people his ‘sons’. This means that one can’t pray like Jesus does if they don’t have the Spirit. And so, the first prayer for anyone is to ‘receive the Spirit’ and so become a ‘son’ (v. 13). In other words, the kind of prayer life the disciples desire is impossible without the Holy Spirit who makes one a son/daughter of God.
Having then received the Holy Spirit (i.e., having become a child of God), one calls upon God as Father (this is covenantal, not purely transactional relationship). One prays for his name to be honoured and kingdom to be advanced (for God’s name to be made known through his people); one entrusts themselves to him for all they need (daily bread); and one acknowledges their need for forgiveness and longing to pay that forgiveness forward to others.
One asks and receives because they’re praying for what the Spirit desires; they seek and find because their praying is guided by the Spirit; one knocks and the door is opened because they’re knocking where the Spirit is already guiding and working. Hence, one asks, seeks, and knocks:
To their Father [in Heaven]
For his reign to manifest on earth
For their daily bread
For forgiveness and for paying forgiveness forward.
For others to be adopted and granted the Spirit of Sonship
All of which is to say, if you want too know what Spirit-infused prayer looks like, look at the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus gave his followers.