Once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” Jesus said, “This is how you should pray: Father, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. Give us each day the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation.” [Luke 11:1-4 (NLT)]
While the ability to calm storms would have been handy, rather than asking Jesus how he managed to do that or turn water into wine, heal the sick, provide a miraculous catch of fish, make the paralyzed walk, one of Jesus’ disciples asked the Lord how to pray. Scripture makes frequent mention of Jesus praying so the disciple knew that prayer was an integral part of His life. Perhaps he suspected that Jesus’ power sprang from His prayers.
Although rabbis often taught their disciples prayers, by Jesus’ day, every Jew knew at least one prayer, the Amidah (or Eighteen Benedictions), that was to be prayed daily. No doubt, Jesus and His followers prayed that prayer regularly. With the Amidah’s promise to sanctify God’s name; its acknowledgment of God’s power and glory; and its petitions for forgiveness, deliverance from affliction, provision, the righteous reign of God, and the Messianic kingdom to come, the prayer Jesus taught was a somewhat abbreviated version of this much longer and more formal Jewish prayer.
Although Jesus’ prayer has come to be known as the “The Lord’s Prayer,” its title is somewhat misleading. This is unlike the prayers Jesus said for His disciples or when He asked that His “cup of suffering” be taken the night before His death. It’s not like Jesus’ prayers on the cross when He asked why He’d been forsaken, that God forgive the people, and when He entrusted His spirit into God’s hands. Those prayers truly were the Lord’s prayers; the prayer Jesus taught us is ours!
Rather than offering this prayer to God, Jesus was giving this prayer to His disciples. Because the possessive determiners and pronouns are plural, we are not asking as an individual but as a group. United in faith, we pray to our Father, not mine. We’re asking for ourselves along with one another. It’s not give, forgive, and let me; it’s give, forgive, and let us. It’s not the food I need or the people I forgive who sinned against me; it’s the food we need and the people we must forgive who hurt us. This is a prayer meant to be said with one another. A prayer of community, it is a corporate prayer of submission and dependence. Perhaps a more appropriate title for this well-known prayer would be “The Disciples’ Prayer.”
Some version of this prayer is found in the liturgies of the Christian church as early as 65 AD and it continued to be used regularly through the Middle Ages. After the Reformation, the Lord’s Prayer was used in Protestant liturgies as well as Roman Catholic and Orthodox. Church leaders like Martin Bucer, John Calvin, Thomas Cranmer, and John Knox included it as a regular part of public worship.
In spite of this being the only prayer Jesus taught, many of today’s non-denominational churches don’t say it. Perhaps they see it as a relic from the past, believe that Jesus meant it only as a model, fear that people might treat it as a “magic formula,” or are concerned that such a familiar prayer will be repeated thoughtlessly. While special power should never be ascribed to words and no prayer ever should be said carelessly, anything Jesus said is worth repeating over and over again! Although we attend a non-denominational non-liturgical church on Sundays, we attend a liturgical church Saturday evenings. There we join with other believers reading a psalm, reciting the creed, and praying the Lord’s Prayer as one; there is nothing unthinking or perfunctory about any of it. Singing, declaring, and praying with one voice reinforces our oneness in the Spirit and the Lord.
When Cyprian wrote about the Lord’s Prayer early in the 2nd century, he emphasized the importance of praying it with other believers as a way of uniting them with their church family: “Our prayer is public and common; and when we pray, we pray not for one but for the whole people, because we the whole people are one.” Indeed, the Lord’s Prayer is a prayer to be said with other believers as a way of uniting us in the Body of Christ!
May we never hesitate to offer this beautiful prayer to our Father!
Devotions of the Heart 