Sixth Monday of Eastertide

5/18/2020

Introductory Note: ‘Our Father who art in Heaven’

We are in the 6th week of Eastertide and fast approaching Pentecost Sunday, May 31. During this season of Eastertide, we are reflecting upon what it means to be God’s Easter people: those for whom this present life is no longer that of the old ‘I,’ but that of the risen Christ living His life within us. This life we are living right now, we live trusting and obeying the Son of God, who loved us and sacrificed Himself for us, (Galatians 2:20).

For the present we are focusing on prayer and practicing the presence of God, as Brother Lawrence has written. This week we concentrate on that part of the Lord’s Prayer where we are instructed by Jesus to pray to our Father who is in Heaven.

By these words we are reminded that though God is near, intimate, and gentle with us as a ‘daddy’ (Abba-Father) is with His cherished and well-beloved child, God is also the transcendent and majestic Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth. God is glorious, inspiring awe and fear by His power and might, His radiance and splendor, His holiness and infinite sovereignty.

God in His glory is likened to: fire and earthquake; to tempest and thunderstorm; to blinding light and terrible darkness. Those who encounter God in His holiness and glory hide themselves in cracks in the earth (Moses), feel themselves disintegrating (Isaiah), fall upon their faces in the dust (Paul), collapse at His feet as though dead (John).

We are drawn to God because He is our dear, loving and gracious Abba-Father, but we are also awed by Him because of His is holy and glorious transcendence. If you have read the classic children’s book The Wind in the Willows, then you’ll know there is an episode in the story that portrays a Being who is both loved and feared at the same time by the little heroes of the story. Here’s a snippet from the chapter entitled, “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” where Ratty and Mole approach Pan on an island in the river.

“Rat,” Mole found breath to whisper, shaking. “Are you afraid?”

“Afraid?” murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. “Afraid? Of Him? O, never, never. And yet – and yet – O Mole, I am afraid.”

The One to whom we pray is ‘our Father who is glorious and majestic in His Heaven.’

Heidelberg Catechism

Q. 121 Why the words ‘in heaven’?

A. These words teach us not to think of God’s heavenly majesty as something earthly, and to expect everything for body and soul from his almighty power.

God’s Grandeur, by Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Old Testament Reading: Genesis 28:15-18

“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” 16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” 17 And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. 18 So early in the morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it.”

Meditation “Our Father who art in Heaven”

Have you ever had a startling experience where you awoke to the sudden grip of the clear realization that you were in the Presence of God? Can you recall a time when the intellectual belief that God is omnipresent took on sharp, existential reality? Where you said or thought or felt, with Jacob, “God is here?"

In this passage Jacob comprehended with fear and trembling that he was in God’s personal Presence. Jacob was like all people in Scripture who are suddenly confronted by the holy and glorious Presence: He was undone and staggered by the Presence of the holy and glorious One and fell to worship Him in deep reverence and overwhelmed humility.

Take a moment to meditate on the fact, the reality that you are now in God’s actual and glorious Presence; that you are, indeed, in His house – in His dwelling place – and that you are at the very gates of heaven itself. And, in the light of that existential truth, worship God and pray to Him.

Cloud of Witnesses

“If you don't see the greatness of God then all the things that money can buy become very exciting. If you can't see the sun you will be impressed with a street light. If you've never felt thunder and lightning you'll be impressed with fireworks. And if you turn your back on the greatness and majesty of God you'll fall in love with a world of shadows and short-lived pleasures.”

– John Piper

“It's not great faith you need; it is faith in a great God.”

– N. T. Wright

“Many Christians estimate difficulties in the light of their own resources, and thus attempt little and often fail in the little they attempt. All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on His power and presence with them.”

– Hudson Taylor

“The remarkable thing about God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else.”

– Oswald Chambers

“What is the glory of God? It is who God is. It is the essence of His nature; the weight of His supremacy; the radiance of His splendor; the demonstration of His power; the majesty of His presence.”

– Rick Warren

Morning Prayer: from St. Augustine, 4th Century AD

Lord Jesus, let me know myself and know Thee, And desire nothing save only Thee.
Let me hate myself and love Thee.
Let me do everything for the sake of Thee.
Let me humble myself and exalt Thee.
Let me think nothing except Thee.
Let me die to myself and live in Thee.
Let me accept whatever happens as from Thee.
Let me banish self and follow Thee, and ever desire to follow Thee.
Let me fly from myself and take refuge in Thee,
that I may deserve to be defended by Thee.
Let me fear for myself, let me fear Thee, and let me be among those who are chosen by Thee.
Let me distrust myself and put my trust in Thee.
Let me be willing to obey for the sake of Thee.
Let me cling to nothing save only to Thee, and let me be poor because of Thee.
Look upon me, that I may love Thee.
Call me that I may see Thee, And forever enjoy Thee.

Amen

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Sixth Monday of Eastertide

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