Lord's Prayer: Hallowed Be Thy NameSýnishorn

“Hallowed be thy name.” People don’t talk like that anymore. This old King James-ism has fossilized itself into the way people pray the Lord’s Prayer. What is Jesus getting at when he tells us to pray this way?

You’d be hard-pressed to find the word “hallowed” outside the Lord’s Prayer. It’s not a common word. Maybe the only other place you’ll find it is in a word like “Halloween,” the meaning of which is “All Hallows Eve.” That is, the night before All Holy One’s Day, or All Saints Day.

Which should cue us in. “Hallowed” means “hol-i-fy.” Like in, “make holy.” The verb “hallowed” is an imperative. That means a command. So Jesus is telling us in the Lord’s Prayer to demand of God that he make his name holy, “God, make holy your name!”

I bet you don’t often pray that way. Many don’t. When Jesus teaches the Lord’s Prayer in Luke 11 and tells us to come to God tenaciously with our requests, I bet that’s not the request you think of. Instead it’s probably all the things we want and need. Those things are important, but here, at the top of the list of things Jesus tells us to pray for, it’s that God would make holy his name. To Jesus, that seems more important than anything.

Consider this today…

What would it look like for today, just today, to put all your personal requests aside and just ask God to make holy his name? What do you fear? What might happen? Why do you think this is so important? How might it change you?