July 21, 2019 - Pastor Message
04/19/2024THE YEAR OF PRAYER PART 21: THE LORD’S PRAYER (cont.)
“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).
Continuing our journey through the Lord’s Prayer, we reflect now on the next two petitions. These petitions continue and develop the theme of the first petition, “Hallowed be thy name.” In that petition, we ask that God’s name, revealed in Jesus as “God saves,” be hallowed in us, that we be made holy, or like God, by becoming more like Jesus.
So what is Jesus like? Our first thoughts might be that he is loving, merciful, and compassionate, and so he is. But those characteristics only form part of a bigger picture, one in which Jesus’ defining character trait is that he is obedient to the Father’s will, as we read in John 6: 3740: “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.” Jesus reveals God’s name, “God saves,” by dedicating his life to carrying out the Father’s saving will, ultimately by giving his life on the cross, a fate he prayed so ardently to avoid that he sweat blood but that in the end he accepted in faithful obedience: “Not my will, but your will, be done” (Luke 22:42).
Because of Christ’s sacrifice, the gates of God’s kingdom, closed to us by sin, are thrown open. In his resurrection from the dead and ascension into glory, Jesus has paved the way to our place in the kingdom, and, by his outpouring of the Holy Spirit, he has given us the grace to become holy and to follow him into the fullness of God’s life and reign, where no trace of sin or division remains. While the “last day” on which God’s kingdom will come in its fullness is known only to God, for our part, we have been called to work toward that day, following Christ’s path of obedience to the Father’s will: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). By doing so, we, like Jesus, become living signs of God’s kingdom in the world, revealing his holy name to our brothers and sisters and inviting them to join us on the way to the kingdom.
Fr. Marc Stockton-
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