What it really means to pray "Hallowed be your name"
Properly understanding the beginning of the Lord's Prayer changes the way we pray.
Pray "hallowed be your name"
When Jesus taught His first followers to pray, He told them to pray (in the words of the King James Version), "Sanctified by Your Name."
What?
It's the first request in The Lord's Prayer, but what are we really saying when we pray those words? It is a sentence as important to understand as it is easy to misunderstand, also because various translations and versions of the Bible express it differently:
"Support the sanctity of your name." (Common English Bible)
"Let your name be kept holy." (Translation of God's Word)
"May your name be honored." (Translation by JB Phillips)
"May your name always be holy." (New Century Version)
It is possible that Jesus was echoing Kedushat HaShem, an ancient prayer that has been passed down through the centuries as the third blessing of the Amidah, the daily blessings recited by observant Jews. At the beginning of their evening prayers, the Jews will say, “You are holy and your name is holy and your saints praise you every day. Blessed are you, Adonai, the God who is holy ”.
In that case, however, Jesus made the Kedushat HaShem statement as a petition. He changed "You are holy and your name is holy" to "May your name be kept holy".
According to author Philip Keller:
What we would like to say in modern language is something like this: “That you are honored, revered and respected for who you are. May your reputation, your name, your person and your character be intact, unspoiled, unspoiled. Nothing can be done to debase or defame your record.
So, in saying “hallowed be your name,” if we are sincere, we agree to protect God's reputation and protect the integrity and holiness of “HaShem,” the Name. "Sanctifying" God's name, therefore, means at least three things:
1) Trust
Once, when God's people were wandering in the Sinai desert after their liberation from slavery in Egypt, they complained about the lack of water. Then God told Moses to speak to the face of a cliff where they had camped, promising that the water would flow from the rock. Instead of speaking to the rock, however, Moses struck it with his staff, which had played a part in numerous miracles in Egypt.
God later said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not believe in Me, to sustain me as holy in the sight of the people of Israel, so you will not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them" (Numbers 20: 12, ESV) . Believing in God - trusting him and taking him at his word - "sanctifies" his name and defends his reputation.
2) Obey
when God gave his commandments to his people, he said to them: “Then you will keep my commandments and fulfill them: I am the Lord. And thou shalt not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified among the people of Israel "(Leviticus 22: 31–32, ESV). In other words, a lifestyle of submission and obedience to God "sanctifies" his name, not a legalistic puritanism, but a captivating and daily search for God and his ways.
3) Joy
When David's second attempt to return the Ark of the Covenant - the symbol of God's presence with his people - to Jerusalem was successful, he was so overwhelmed with joy that he threw away his royal robes and danced with abandon in the holy procession . His wife, Michal, however, scolded her husband because, she said, "he exposed himself as a fool to the sight of the female servants of his officials!" But David replied, “I was dancing to honor the Lord, who chose me instead of your father and his family to make me the head of his people Israel. And I will continue to dance to honor the Lord ”(2 Samuel 6: 20–22, GNT). Joy - in worship, in trial, in the details of daily life - honors God. When our lives exude “the joy of the Lord” (Nehemiah 8:10), God's name is sanctified.
"Hallowed be your name" is a request and an attitude similar to that of a friend of mine, who would send her children to school every morning with the admonition, "Remember who you are", repeating the surname and making it clear that they are he expected them to bring honor, not shame, to that name. This is what we say when we pray: "Hallowed be your name"