Honouring God’s name

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OUR Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

We all know how today the name of God has become a kind of swear word. Something goes wrong, and she immediately uses the holy name of God as an expletive. Or when the chef suddenly remembers he didn’t turn off the heat under the pan and the veg is burned he uses God’s holy name to express his frustration with himself.

The sacred name of God is rich with meaning. In the Bible, God gradually unfolded his nature, who he is and what he is like, by disclosing his character through names. In Genesis these names act like drawing back the curtains and letting the sunlight of knowledge stream into the dark room of human ignorance about who God is and what he is like.

First, the name God used with Abraham is El Shaddai, meaning ‘the Mighty God’.

Then, when Hagar was dying of thirst in the desert, God is called El Roi’ meaning the ‘God who sees us’ and watches over us. Next comes El Olam, meaning ‘God Most High’: God above and over all. In Exodus, the meaning of the name ‘Lord’ was revealed as I AM THAT I AM – the ever living One, the Eternal Contemporary. Thus, God’s nature was being gradually revealed through his names.

What does this mean for us today? Because ‘the name’ means God himself, when we say, hallowed by thy name, we are asking that others also will revere and honour the Lord God. The ‘name’ means all that God is in and of himself, all that he has done through his Son and all that he yet will do in this broken world of ours.

Someone might object, ‘But was that not just the Old Testament? We now have Jesus who taught us to call him “Father”.’ But in the New Testament we find that this first petition of the Lord’s Prayer was Christ’s consuming passion. Hear him praying during the Last Supper before he was betrayed and crucified: ‘I have manifested your name to those you have given me…

Holy Father, keep them in your name… While I was with them, I kept them in your name… I have made known to them your name ...’ (John 17 ESV).

There is a sense in which, whenever we pray and use God’s name, we should take off our shoes as Moses did for we are standing on holy ground. How little we appreciate God’s goodness, patience, kindness and the tenderness of his love. With what holy adoration we should celebrate God as our rock, our peace, the shepherd who leads us, God our righteousness who cleanses and renews us, God as the ever present one who will never leave us nor forsake us. All this is included in these two words: thy name.

The honour of God’s name is the honour of God himself. It must be our constant desire and earnest prayer.