Hallowed be Thy name.
Matthew 6:9
The beginning of the Lord’s Prayer calls upon God as “our Father.” We are also reminded that He is so much more. Sometimes we can forget that we are also praying to the universal, sovereign, all-powerful Creator. Thus, there needs to be a balance of the intimate relationship He desires as “our Father”, and a healthy amount of awe and fear that He deserves as our God. This balance is found prominently in the call to Holy Communion at the Divine Liturgy. We are invited with the words “With the fear of God, faith and love draw near.” (Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, official translation of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, 2015, p. 77) This seems like a conflict with I John 4:18, which reads, There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfect in love. In the case of Holy Communion, we are to approach with both. We are to approach with love of God, and we can only approach if we love God. It is an act of faith to approach for Holy Communion, both faith in the Holy Trinity, and faith in the power of the Holy Spirit to transform bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. Because we are approaching for this intimate encounter with the Lord, we should do it with an appropriate sense of fear and awe, not in a cavalier manner or an entitled manner. When I was a child, fifty years ago, very few people approached for Holy Communion, except on Christmas and Pascha. It was not uncommon for only a few small children, and older people who were sick or infirm to approach. Over the course of my lifetime, the pendulum has swung the other way. Now most people approach most of the time. Are we not fearing enough? Have we focused on love and faith and forgot about fear? Or do we not focus on any of these things, and just approach out of habit? These are questions for each of us to meditate on, and to discuss with our priest and Spiritual Father. (This is one of the reasons why it is imperative that we go to confession periodically, to discuss things like proper preparation to receive Holy Communion with our priest, as well as how frequently we should be partaking.) Whether we are speaking the name of God, or approaching to receive Him, it should be with a sense of reverence and awe.
God reveals His name, “I AM” to Moses in Exodus 3 during an encounter between Moses and a burning bush. We read in Exodos 3: 13-15,
Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am.” And He said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God is Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’; this is My name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.”
The term “I AM” in Hebrew is “Yahweh,” and in Greek is “O On,” which are the letters that are in the halo of the icons of Christ, the O WN we see depicted. “Hallowed” means to proclaim as Holy, set apart, held in the highest regard. The Greek word for “hallowed” in the Lord’s Prayer is agiasthito, which literally means “to make holy,” in other words for the name of God to aside above all other names. The audience who heard the Sermon on the Mount would have known that not only God Himself would be hallowed, but the very name of God itself would be respected. This is the third commandment: to not take the name of the God in vain. The third commandment reads as follows in Exodus 20:7: You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
Finally, we are not only called upon to make holy the name of the Lord. We are called upon to become holy, just as the Lord we believe in and serve in holy. We read in I Peter 1: 13-16, Therefore gird up your minds, be sober, set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as He who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
To be holy means to be set apart for God. It means that we don’t conform to the world. Saint Paul writes in Romans 12:2, Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. We are to be transformed, to allow ourselves to be changed (and to seek change) so that our lives line up with the holiness of God, rather than the ways of the world. If the Lord’s name is hallowed or holy, then as His followers, we are to not only honor His name, but to reflect His name, His holiness in our lives.
One challenge in the world is that in today’s culture, we “hallow” the names of celebrities, athletes, singers, actors, influencers, striving to be like those we find admirable and worthy of emulation. Many people work to have others “hallow” their name, collecting as many followers as possible. We are reminded, in the Lord’s Prayer, to hallow the name of God, and His name alone.
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the heights! Praise Him, all His angels, praise Him, all His host! Praise Him, sun and moon, praise Him, all you shining stars! Praise Him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the Lord! For He commanded and they were created. And He established them forever and ever; He fixed their bounds which cannot be passed. Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling His command! Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds! Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth! Young men and maidens together, old men and children! Let them praise the name of the Lord, for His name alone is exalted; His glory is above earth and heaven. He has raised up a horn for His people, praise for all His saints, for the people of Israel who are near to Him. Praise the Lord! Psalm 148
Points to ponder: If being holy means being set apart, what are some ways you are striving for holiness in your life? How encouraged or discouraged are you in your pursuit of holiness? Do you find it difficult to be consistent?
