St Matthew 26:36-45 /Our Father: Second and Third Petitions
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
The Lord your God has commanded you to pray and He has promised to hear you. He has also taught you how to pray, both by giving you the words and by His own example in Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord. In Him, by grace, through baptismal adoption, you may approach the Father and call upon His Name with all boldness and confidence. It is meet, righty, and salutary that you should do so because your need for Him is great: He is your Life and Salvation, your help and hope at all times and in all places.
Thus do you pray to Him, according to His Word and will, that is to say, in the way that He Himself has taught you to pray, and in the confidence of His promises. For He teaches you to pray, not for things that are in doubt or are uncertain, but for that which He promises and does by grace alone before you or anyone else would have ever known or thought to ask for them.
He teaches you to pray in this way so that you would thereby learn to look to Him, to trust in Him, and to live by faith in His Word and promise; that you would seek first His Kingdom and the faithful obedience of His will, and that receiving these by faith in His Gospel, you would receive all His good and perfect gifts by grace, which come, as they do for the Sole-Begotten Son, by way of and through the very means of His Cross and Passion, Death and Resurrection.
The connections between God’s Name, His Kingdom, and the accomplishment of His will are implicit in every case, but are especially clear in a few key places: It is there in the Lord’s promise to David that his son would build a House for the Lord’s Name, and that the Lord would establish his kingdom forever, and the fruition of this promise in the Annunciation of Gabriel to St Mary, which is both the Name and the coming of the Kingdom of the Lord, which culminates in the doing of His good and perfect will in the obedient suffering and death of His Son, which accomplishes your salvation.
In other words, God’s Kingdom comes and His will is done, by the Incarnation and Crucifixion of His Son. As David prays in Psalm 2: The Lord said to my Lord, sit at My right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool! His reign is instantiated and His will is accomplished in the Cross and Resurrection and Ascension of His Son, the very bearer of the Divine Name.
In Christ Jesus God’s Kingdom is established forever, and it will come, regardless of what man does or says or believes. And in the perfect obedience of Christ Jesus, who was betrayed into the hands of sinners and delivered up to death, His good and gracious will is done, by which He breaks and hinders the purposes and plans of the devil, the world, and our flesh. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the Name that is above every name, so that at the Name of Jesus every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:9-11).
Thus are you taught and so do you pray that your Savior and Redeemer would also be your King; that He would reign over you in righteousness and peace, with His wisdom and justice, grace and mercy, according to His will and Word. Therefore the coming of Christ Jesus and the preaching of His Gospel necessarily begins with the preaching of repentance, because the Kingdom of God is at hand in His flesh and blood and the fulfillment of His will comes when, by way of His Word and Spirit, He hinders the evil plans of your flesh and rescues you from the devil’s dominion, bringing you into His Kingdom, that you may be His own and live under Him according to His Word and will; that you should fear, love, and trust in Him as your King, who comes not to be served, but to serve, who has offered His life as a Ransom for many and for you.
Ultimately, dear ones, the Kingdom of God is not a matter of political affiliation, geographical domain, or material prosperity, but rather a matter of living by faith and love in Christ Jesus the King, great David’s greater Son. The peace and prosperity, unity and strength of the Kingdom is located in the indestructible life and eternal reign of this one, true King, whom God the Father raised from the dead and exalted over all things at His right hand.
To pray, then, for the coming of this Kingdom is to pray for the coming and gift of the Holy Spirit who works faith and love by the Word of Christ, where and when it pleases Him, in those who hear the Gospel. It is the Spirit you teaches you to pray, Abba! Father! It is the Spirit who grants peace and Sabbath Rest in the true Kingdom of God, that is, within the very Body of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. It is the Spirit who strengthens and keeps you firm in this Word and faith until you die according to the good and gracious will of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is also your God and Father, by your adoption as sons.
For it is the crucified, dead, buried, resurrection and ascended Christ who has accomplished the Father’s will by way of His Cross and Passion, in in so doing has broken the evil plans and purposes of the devil. Through your Baptism into His crucified and buried Body your sinful nature is also hindered and broken, which does not want you to hallow God’s Name or let His kingdom come. For as it was the Father’s good and gracious will that the Christ should willingly submit to the Cross in obedient death on behalf of sinners, thereby reconciling the world to Himself, so also is it the Father’s good and gracious will to lay upon the self-same Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ which simultaneously marks you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified and mortifies your flesh.
For it is to this Cross that you have been crucified to the world and the world to you. No longer do you live, but Christ lives within you. Thus, no Christian on earth lives to himself alone, petitioning the Father, saying, “My will be done,” but the Christian has died with Christ and his life is now hidden with Him in the bosom of the Father.
Thus do you, dear Christian, live in faith toward God, caught up to heaven where His will is perfectly done and joyfully obeyed, and you are pressed down to earth, leading a godly life in love toward your neighbor, in continual submission of your own will and desires to the good and gracious will of the Father. Such faithful obedience is never easy, but is truly a daily death to oneself, and a rising to walk in the newness of life prepared beforehand by your gracious God and Father, following the footsteps of Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord and Brother.
Therefore, do not be surprised, beloved, at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you (1 Pt 4:12); but rejoice, for within the godly vocations into which you have been placed, you participate in the very sufferings of Christ, who accomplished the will of the Father on your behalf and brings His Kingdom to you and among you and, yes, within you, by way of the Word of His Cross. For “through all types of cross and suffering, the superior divine will [of your true and dear Father] breaks your self-seeking individual will” (Peters, 95). Thus are you taught, by Jesus Christ, your dear Brother in the flesh, to pray with Him and in Him, saying, Our Father, Thy will be done, and so to pray against yourself, against your fleshly desires to forgo suffering and the cross, and in faith, joyfully receive them as the loving discipline and blessed gift of your dear Father in heaven.
Cling, dear ones, to His divine promise of rescue and redemption, for He has already sanctified your suffering and persecution by His own innocent suffering and death. There, in His Cross you find an anchor for your embattled heart and conscience, a Rock of refuge on which to repose. And here, upon the Holy Hill of His Church, you find the dwelling place of the Kingdom of God in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Come then, to the Altar of God, to God your exceeding joy, and receive the very instantiation of His Kingdom in His own Body and Blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins and by which He breaks and hinders the evil plans and purposes of the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh, and through which He strengthens and keeps you firm in His Word and faith until you die. For such is His good and gracious will.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen,
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
The Lord your God has commanded you to pray and He has promised to hear you. He has also taught you how to pray, both by giving you the words and by His own example in Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord. In Him, by grace, through baptismal adoption, you may approach the Father and call upon His Name with all boldness and confidence. It is meet, righty, and salutary that you should do so because your need for Him is great: He is your Life and Salvation, your help and hope at all times and in all places.
Thus do you pray to Him, according to His Word and will, that is to say, in the way that He Himself has taught you to pray, and in the confidence of His promises. For He teaches you to pray, not for things that are in doubt or are uncertain, but for that which He promises and does by grace alone before you or anyone else would have ever known or thought to ask for them.
He teaches you to pray in this way so that you would thereby learn to look to Him, to trust in Him, and to live by faith in His Word and promise; that you would seek first His Kingdom and the faithful obedience of His will, and that receiving these by faith in His Gospel, you would receive all His good and perfect gifts by grace, which come, as they do for the Sole-Begotten Son, by way of and through the very means of His Cross and Passion, Death and Resurrection.
The connections between God’s Name, His Kingdom, and the accomplishment of His will are implicit in every case, but are especially clear in a few key places: It is there in the Lord’s promise to David that his son would build a House for the Lord’s Name, and that the Lord would establish his kingdom forever, and the fruition of this promise in the Annunciation of Gabriel to St Mary, which is both the Name and the coming of the Kingdom of the Lord, which culminates in the doing of His good and perfect will in the obedient suffering and death of His Son, which accomplishes your salvation.
In other words, God’s Kingdom comes and His will is done, by the Incarnation and Crucifixion of His Son. As David prays in Psalm 2: The Lord said to my Lord, sit at My right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool! His reign is instantiated and His will is accomplished in the Cross and Resurrection and Ascension of His Son, the very bearer of the Divine Name.
In Christ Jesus God’s Kingdom is established forever, and it will come, regardless of what man does or says or believes. And in the perfect obedience of Christ Jesus, who was betrayed into the hands of sinners and delivered up to death, His good and gracious will is done, by which He breaks and hinders the purposes and plans of the devil, the world, and our flesh. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the Name that is above every name, so that at the Name of Jesus every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:9-11).
Thus are you taught and so do you pray that your Savior and Redeemer would also be your King; that He would reign over you in righteousness and peace, with His wisdom and justice, grace and mercy, according to His will and Word. Therefore the coming of Christ Jesus and the preaching of His Gospel necessarily begins with the preaching of repentance, because the Kingdom of God is at hand in His flesh and blood and the fulfillment of His will comes when, by way of His Word and Spirit, He hinders the evil plans of your flesh and rescues you from the devil’s dominion, bringing you into His Kingdom, that you may be His own and live under Him according to His Word and will; that you should fear, love, and trust in Him as your King, who comes not to be served, but to serve, who has offered His life as a Ransom for many and for you.
Ultimately, dear ones, the Kingdom of God is not a matter of political affiliation, geographical domain, or material prosperity, but rather a matter of living by faith and love in Christ Jesus the King, great David’s greater Son. The peace and prosperity, unity and strength of the Kingdom is located in the indestructible life and eternal reign of this one, true King, whom God the Father raised from the dead and exalted over all things at His right hand.
To pray, then, for the coming of this Kingdom is to pray for the coming and gift of the Holy Spirit who works faith and love by the Word of Christ, where and when it pleases Him, in those who hear the Gospel. It is the Spirit you teaches you to pray, Abba! Father! It is the Spirit who grants peace and Sabbath Rest in the true Kingdom of God, that is, within the very Body of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. It is the Spirit who strengthens and keeps you firm in this Word and faith until you die according to the good and gracious will of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is also your God and Father, by your adoption as sons.
For it is the crucified, dead, buried, resurrection and ascended Christ who has accomplished the Father’s will by way of His Cross and Passion, in in so doing has broken the evil plans and purposes of the devil. Through your Baptism into His crucified and buried Body your sinful nature is also hindered and broken, which does not want you to hallow God’s Name or let His kingdom come. For as it was the Father’s good and gracious will that the Christ should willingly submit to the Cross in obedient death on behalf of sinners, thereby reconciling the world to Himself, so also is it the Father’s good and gracious will to lay upon the self-same Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ which simultaneously marks you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified and mortifies your flesh.
For it is to this Cross that you have been crucified to the world and the world to you. No longer do you live, but Christ lives within you. Thus, no Christian on earth lives to himself alone, petitioning the Father, saying, “My will be done,” but the Christian has died with Christ and his life is now hidden with Him in the bosom of the Father.
Thus do you, dear Christian, live in faith toward God, caught up to heaven where His will is perfectly done and joyfully obeyed, and you are pressed down to earth, leading a godly life in love toward your neighbor, in continual submission of your own will and desires to the good and gracious will of the Father. Such faithful obedience is never easy, but is truly a daily death to oneself, and a rising to walk in the newness of life prepared beforehand by your gracious God and Father, following the footsteps of Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord and Brother.
Therefore, do not be surprised, beloved, at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you (1 Pt 4:12); but rejoice, for within the godly vocations into which you have been placed, you participate in the very sufferings of Christ, who accomplished the will of the Father on your behalf and brings His Kingdom to you and among you and, yes, within you, by way of the Word of His Cross. For “through all types of cross and suffering, the superior divine will [of your true and dear Father] breaks your self-seeking individual will” (Peters, 95). Thus are you taught, by Jesus Christ, your dear Brother in the flesh, to pray with Him and in Him, saying, Our Father, Thy will be done, and so to pray against yourself, against your fleshly desires to forgo suffering and the cross, and in faith, joyfully receive them as the loving discipline and blessed gift of your dear Father in heaven.
Cling, dear ones, to His divine promise of rescue and redemption, for He has already sanctified your suffering and persecution by His own innocent suffering and death. There, in His Cross you find an anchor for your embattled heart and conscience, a Rock of refuge on which to repose. And here, upon the Holy Hill of His Church, you find the dwelling place of the Kingdom of God in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Come then, to the Altar of God, to God your exceeding joy, and receive the very instantiation of His Kingdom in His own Body and Blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins and by which He breaks and hinders the evil plans and purposes of the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh, and through which He strengthens and keeps you firm in His Word and faith until you die. For such is His good and gracious will.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen,
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