Today's Reading: Seventh Petition & Conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer
Daily Lectionary: Exodus 9:1-28; Hebrews 2:1-18
But deliver us from evil.
What does this mean? We pray in this petition, in summary, that our Father in heaven would rescue us from every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation, and finally, when our last hour comes, give us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven.
Happy Holy Week! In the name of Jesus. Amen. A blessedend. In Holy Week, we pray for a blessed end! How joyful! A Jesus-filled end, a Christ-crucified end, an alive-to-Christ end.
We don’t normally like to think about our end. We generally try to avoid it. We work out and get checkups. We go to extraordinary means to look and feel younger—all to postpone, well...the end. We know we can’t stop it, so we try to at least delay it. As it comes closer, we look back on our life to see whether our little flicker has had any impact on the universe. Howwill we be remembered? Willwe be remembered?
Christ and Him alone. He will answer our prayer for a blessed end. He already has by faith in Him! We’ve died already. Our big, nasty end took place at the baptismal font where we died with Christ. Our funeral and our burial has already happened. We were buried with Christ. Whatever death we have left, and everything up until then, is just a fulfillment of our baptism. We won’t really "die" die. We are alive in Christ, and we will continue to be alive in Christ.
So until then, we pray that God would deliver us from the evil we do and say—that He would protect us from our sins, from our failures, from our desires—that He would keep us from the things that would destroy us.
A blessed end is the end He gives us. An end to our suffering, to the temptations of this world, to sickness, and even to death itself.
And will your life make a difference in the universe? It already has, in Christ. In all the universe, in all this time, with all these stars, planets, pulsars, He has only one you. And for you He sent His Son. For you His Son died. For you, He rose. In all the universe, He loves you specifically in Christ. He has only one you, and He saved you.
God’s has a happy Lent, rejoicing in the gift of you. One day, He’ll show you just how much a gift you are to Him in Christ. Happy Holy Week! In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.What does this mean? This means that I should be certain that these petitions are pleasing to our Father in heaven, and are heard by Him; for He Himself has commanded us to pray in this way and has promised to hear us. Amen, amen means "yes, yes, it shall be so."