This past Sunday we began a sermon series on the Lord’s prayer. As I was researching for the sermon there were at least a couple of things that were interesting to me. (You may have heard some of this in the sermon on Sunday.)
1. When Jesus gives his disciples this prayer it is in response to their wanting to know how to pray in private. John taught his disciple’s how to pray in private and Jesus’ disciple’s wanted to know how, too.
2. The prayer, even though it is given as a private prayer, is very communal: our Father in heaven, give us this day our daily bread. It is not individualistic.
3. The prayer is not Trinitarian. There is no mention of Jesus or the Holy Spirit in this prayer. One commentator mentioned that the prayer is very much like the prayers spoken in the Jewish synagogue. It seems you could argue that Jesus is teaching the prayer and the Holy Spirit hasn’t been given, yet but those arguments seem to be a bit of a stretch as to why the prayer seems to focus on God the Father alone.
4. We most frequently pray this prayer as part of worship but it is a prayer that Luther lifts up as a prayer that is spoken in the morning and in the evening and at meal times as well. (It’s in the Small Catechism check out pages 1166-1167 in the hymnal at church if you don’t have a Small Catechism at home.)
5. The Lord’s Prayer is found in the midst of a long discourse where Jesus is teaching his disciples on many different topics. You can check it out in chapters 5-7 of Matthew’s Gospel.
We will be learning more about the Lord’s Prayer in the weeks to come. I’m looking forward to it, how about you?
God’s Peace,
Pastor Steve