[This is the first and perhaps the most difficult request of the Lord's Prayer to understand. For what need is there of our request, when the name of God is holy without, and in itself, and not by our request, not by our work or by any act of ours. I have just read the description of the vision of the prophet Isaiah: he saw the heavens opened before him and beheld a ray of the infinite glory of the kingdom of God. He saw the Lord God on His royal throne in great power and splendour. He saw the angelic hosts hovering around him, covering their faces with their wings because they could not bear the radiance of the glory of the eternal God, and he heard the heavenly hosts singing one eternal, mighty hymn incessantly:"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, full is all the wide earth of His glory." (Is 6:3) The most divine of all the so-called attributes of God is His holiness. There is only one holy One in this world, the living God, and there is only one holy name, His holy name.
"Hallowed be Thy name" - the substance of this petition is that God's name may be as holy among us, that we may guard and work the holiness of that name as the angelic hosts in heaven. In this way we ask that His name may be hallowed for us also, in us and through us in the world.
1) So let God's name be truly holy for us! It is a thing unheard of that all our knowledge of God is not the result of human research, but a revelation of the living God Himself. In other words, what we know about God is not something we have thought out for ourselves, not something that has been reasoned out by men of great wisdom, not something that has been filtered down through thousands of years of experience, but is something that God Himself has said about Himself. In the same way: man did not give God a name, but He Himself gave men His own name. The pagan gods were given different names by men themselves, one for Jupiter, another for Venus, a third for Astarte, and so on. We can call God by the name that God Himself used to declare Himself. In His Word, He calls Himself at one time the Most High, at another time the Almighty, at yet another time the Lord of Hosts, and then the Father, in His full name, the Father-Son-Holy Spirit. These names are not signs, like human names, which are used only to distinguish one man from another, but each name of God is a brief summary of His person, His whole being. God's name not only expresses that He is called by that name, but He declares in His name who He is, what kind of God He is.
By the name of God, then, is meant the person of the living God Himself, as He has made Himself known to us in His revelation, as He has made Himself known to us. Therefore His name is holy, it is a name that is applied to Him alone, He is the only bearer of that name. In the strictest sense of the word, this name is His own name. Holy name! Holy is that which inspires awe and prayerful reverence. Holy is that which makes me shrink and shrink, which inspires in me the fearful joy and the joyful awe of reverence, which stands before me as an absolute authority, whose destructive power, whose immeasurable goodness and power to overcome all opposition, brings me to my knees in spirit. And is the name of God holy to us in this sense? Does the trembling joy of godliness overwhelm our souls when we think of Him, stand before Him in prayer, or talk about Him? God has given us His holy name to use and live by: what has this holy name become on our lips? In our hands, in our ears, in our hearts?
I think of an old coin that has been worn down to the point of being unrecognisable. Has not the holy name of God become such a worn-out coin among us? Has not our much empty talk about God become something like a tattered, dirty old banknote, perhaps even out of use, no longer accepted, no longer to be paid with? Is it not the case that we can talk about God without the slightest tremor of godliness? We are so accustomed to the use of his holy name in prayer, in speech, in thought, that we say it as easily as we say the name of any good friend. The pure creatures of heaven hide their faces from the dazzling radiance of God's glory, and we carelessly, carelessly, carelessly almost play with Him. We would be dismayed if any one should pick white roses in the garden with sooty, dirty hands, but it never dismayed us that we should dare to take God's holy name on our sinful, unclean lips.
Yes: God our Father is God, God good, God merciful and forgiving of sins, but not our equal partner, but our holy Saviour, with whom we cannot play as with a good fellow, nor bargain as with a merchant, nor sweet-talk as with a child - for He is God. Jesus, in human form, is a holy God, who will not let anyone take His name in vain go unpunished!
2) And do you know why it is so important that the reality of God's holiness shines before us again and again? Because if God is no longer holy to us, then His word is no longer holy, His law is no longer holy, then nothing is holy any more, then no respect for parents is holy, no family is holy, no purity of self or others is holy, then no more inhibitions, no more shame for sin. That is why the tempter always wants to undermine the sense of God's holiness in us. Observe how young people are tempted to sin: they call him a coward because he is reluctant to do something, to do something for which he should be ashamed. As long as something is sacred, a sense of shame, a sense of modesty, protects us from desecrating it. And if God is not holy to me, then all that is holy and inviolable is shaken.
"Hallowed be thy name": by this we ask that we may always adopt the right attitude towards God: an attitude of humility, of reverence for God. We ask that the name of God should not be like a worn-out piece of money, but that it should once again be a distinctive, clear, distinct, recognisable, definite value, a holy name and a holy reality! May we see help to sanctify His name, so that in us who have so much discredited this precious name, His name may be sanctified! When we pray, "Hallowed be thy name", we are asking God Himself to bring us into a very intimate relationship with Himself, so that He may be in us the most holy and precious sacrament that fills our whole life. Let us come completely under His holy influence, let us let Him rule over us.
The holiness of God is awesome, it would devour our lives if we were to come close to it, like the hot heat of the sun if we were to fall into it. But the same consuming heat that blazes within the Sun becomes, through its rays, a life-giving force on earth. The annihilating holiness of God has such a life-giving radiance on earth: Jesus Christ is that divine ray. In order for the holiness of God Almighty not to burn us, but to sanctify us, that is, to become a healing, purifying, life-giving power in us: for that we need Jesus Christ! Whoever earnestly asks "Hallowed be Thy name" is crying out to Jesus, offering his life to Jesus, breathing in the divine life forces which the holy God radiates into the world through the person of Jesus Christ. In this way, this petition becomes an occasion for being filled again and again with Christ. "Hallowed be thy name": that is, may the blessed effects of thy holy being be poured out in me, in my family, in my Church, among my people, among all mankind!
3) But the name of God must be sanctified not only in us, in the depths of our souls, in our affections, but also by us. Do we know what it means to profane something? In old wars, the flag had not only the symbolic meaning that it has today. There it was carried at the head of the fighting troops and the flag bearer had to defend the symbol of the country, the flag, its purity, to the death. Not only the flag, but unfortunately our Christianity has such a symbolic meaning today. Yet every single baptised person is like the flag bearer he was in the past. The baptism we have received is nothing other than the sacred badge of the kingdom of God, the flag we carry in this world, willingly or unwillingly. On this banner is inscribed the most holy name, for we are all baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As the flag bearer represents his country, so we all represent the kingdom of God to the world. Woe to the soldier who surrendered the flag to the enemy, but woe still more if he himself trampled it in the mud. Sadly, Christ has many such soldiers who themselves desecrate the flag they carry. The other day an atheist was complaining bitterly about his neighbour, and in the end he summed up his opinion by saying: he may be a good church-goer, but a bad neighbour! And in another family, the same complaint was made about someone: he's always at church, but at home he's insistent and insufferable! You see: this is a desecration of the holy name of God. It is not the heathens who desecrate the name of our Lord, but the flag-bearers themselves who always trample on the most holy, their own flag!
And it is not enough to desecrate that flag, it must also be carried to victory! Our following of Christ, our being a Christian, our Reformed faith, is worth as much as it conquers, as much as it has the ambition and the power to conquer. What colour, interest, and meaning would all our work acquire if we were to approach it with the main motive here not being individual gain and profit, but truly that the name of God might be sanctified through it. Let us take care, then, Brothers and Sisters, that in all our actions, in our conduct, in our speech, in our deeds, in our work, we may so act that whoever sees us may see something of God's beauty, goodness, love - in short, of God's holiness! To this we commit ourselves and ask for strength when we pray, "Hallowed be thy name!" Jesus put this request into our mouths, so let us dare to pray with Him:
HALLOWED BE THY NAME,
That is, because you do it for us,
That we may know you truly
To know you, to fear and to respect you,
To behold your great works of wisdom
And all thy perfections.
Our thoughts and our speech,
And all our lives
So let it flow and so let it shine,
So that all may know it.
That you are, holy God, our Father,
Thou art an example to thy children.
(Canticle 483, verses 4-5)
Amen
Date: 9 January 1955.
Lesson
Ézs 6,1-8