The first petition of the Lord’s Prayer, the primary request made by those who are familiar with God, the chief thing we ask of the one who has made us to know him as Father through our Lord Jesus Christ, is: “Hallowed be your name.” This is the foundational petition of Jesus’ and our prayer; all following petitions are properly interpreted only in light of this one. If you would ask anything of God outside the scope of this petition, it is not, strictly speaking, prayer as Jesus teaches it.
A name is for personal identification and knowing. When you give your name to others, you give something of yourself to them, you invite them to know you in relationship. God’s name is his introduction of himself to others. It’s how we know him. It’s the true disclosure of his identity and character to us for a real relationship with him. God opens himself up to us in his self-revelation. In asking God to hallow his name, we are asking God to make us to know him and love him as he truly is, as he has revealed himself to us. We are asking God to change us and others, so that we would regard him as holy, in accord with reality. We are asking God to make holy to us the knowledge of him in all his fullness. With this petition we are asking God’s help to be able to keep the first three of his Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-7). We pray this way because we recognize in ourselves and others that we don’t trust God, we don’t know him, we don’t love him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength—but we want to. This is our first prayer because this is most important to our life. This is our prayer because only God can make himself known and make us able to respond appropriately.
God has given us his name in the Scriptures, through the history of his relationship with his people: Yahweh (“I Am Who I Am”), Immanuel (“God With Us”), Jesus (“Yahweh Saves”). He has made himself known as the God whose eternal being is love, who has bound himself to us forever in his Incarnation, who opens his own life to us. He has made himself known especially in the Cross, in the love of Christ who was willing to die to forgive our sins. We have God’s name proclaimed to us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we come to love his name by the work of his Spirit in us. To pray, “Hallowed be your name,” is to ask that the Gospel would be clearly proclaimed and that we would hear it with faith. It is a prayer against unbelief, against any conception of God contrary to his self-revelation in Jesus. It is to ask God for the help of his Word and his Spirit in knowing him and relating to him. It is to ask God to introduce himself to others for relationship in ways that cause them to hold his name as sacred. It is to ask God for the privilege of participating in making him known in the world, and it is to rest confidently in the trust that, ultimately, he is the one who will hallow his name.
Why is this a petition and not a declaration of intent? Is this petition related to prayer “in Jesus’ name”? If so, how? Can you relate this petition to each of the first three of the Ten Commandments? Can you think of similar prayers by Jesus or others in the Bible? What happened in response to these prayers? What indication, if any, do we have that God is interested in answering this petition? In what ways might the answer to this petition look differently for different people at different points in their lives? Do you think it would be good for you if God answered this petition? In other words, do you pray this petition? Can you think of ways in which God has answered this petition despite your not praying it earnestly… or at all? If God answers this petition whether or not we pray it, what’s the point of praying it?
