to return to your place in the text.To read endnotes, click on the the note number, then click on the
You may be surprised to learn (or you may already know) that
this phrase is not a part of the prayer that Jesus taught. The
best of the ancient manuscripts do not record it. We first run
into it in a collection of instructions for early Christians
called The Didaché ("The Teachings") compiled about 100 years
after Jesus' earthly ministry. Scholars suppose that it came to
be included in the biblical text when a pious scribe in the first
century, while copying a sacred scroll, decided to add this
doxology to the Lord's words. It provides such a majestic ending
to the prayer that church has been using it ever since.
Of course, this closing phrase was not invented out of thin
air. It had been around for hundreds of years where we found it
in our Old Testament lesson. King David had finished assembling
all the materials for the great temple that Solomon would build
and was moved to a moment of praise: "Blessed are You, O Lord,
the God of our ancestor Israel, forever and ever. Yours, O Lord,
are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the
majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is
Yours; Yours is the Kingdom, O Lord..." As you can see, our
scribe came by his prayer honestly.
But, honestly or not, if Jesus' did not teach "for Thine is
the kingdom and the power and the glory," why preach on the
phrase? Why? We need to hear it. This is one more way to
affirm that of which the scribe of old and the church ever since
have been absolutely convinced and of which we need constant
reminder - that despite all that is wrong in the world, a day
will come when every knee will bow in reverence and every tongue
will shout with joy that this is God's world and that God alone
should be glorified.
The church has done its best to faithfully teach and preach
God's sovereignty through the centuries. Our own Presbyterian
father John Calvin was particularly insistent that God is the
unquestioned ruler of all things. He wrote,
A little boy once offered up this simple prayer: "God bless
mother and daddy, my brother and sister; and God, do take care of
yourself, because if anything happens to YOU, we're all sunk."(3)
A child's way of acknowledging the sovereignty of God.
In a way, it may seem like whistling through the graveyard
to pray, "for Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory." We
look around us and it certainly does not seem to be the case.
This world does not acknowledge the sovereignty of God. God's
law is not obeyed. God's purpose is not fulfilled. As
Archbishop Temple wrote a generation ago, "We know that if our
prayer were fully answered, God's name would be kept in
reverence, His Kingdom would come, His will would be done - we
know that all which embitters life would be gone from it and all
it's perplexities would be resolved."(4) But none of those appears
true at the moment.
Then how can we continue to make our prayer with any
intellectual or philosophical or even theological integrity? I
like the way Dr. Albert Winn, the former President of Louisville
Seminary, answers that question.(5) He notes that at the heart of
biblical faith we do not find air-tight arguments sealed with a
"therefore" - all is right with the world, therefore let us have
faith, therefore let us praise God. Rather at the heart of
biblical faith we find things that do not logically follow at
all, sealed with a "nevertheless." Much is wrong with the world,
the mystery of evil is great, NEVERTHELESS let us have faith,
NEVERTHELESS let us praise God. Perhaps we can better understand
this final doxology if we remember NEVERTHELESS.
See how it works. "Thine is the Kingdom?" The world does
not seem as if it is ruled by God. Volcanoes erupt in Japan and
the Philippines; a cyclone whips Bangladesh. The Husseins and
Khadafis are still in power. In human affairs that get less
notice things are no better. I have a book in my study entitled
The Day America Told The Truth. It is a survey of manners and
morals complied by two executives of a major advertising agency
who say they were able to get honest answers by urging people to
confide their secrets with the promise of absolute anonymity.
According to the book,
It does not appear to be a world in which God is in control.
But the Christian says, NEVERTHELESS, despite everything that
would seem to contradict it, without God, we are "all sunk!"
"Thine is the Kingdom."
"Thine is the Power?" There are times we wonder if God's
hands have been tied. But then we affirm, "There are no dead end
streets in life in which evil is the last word, no enclosures
from which there is no exit."(7) True, at times we wonder why God
does not act to correct injustice and do it according to our
schedule. But then we humbly say, Lord, we do not understand,
but we believe. NEVERTHELESS, "Thine is the Power."
"Thine is the Glory?" Right! If God is truly being
glorified, why are there empty seats here today? Why are there
ever any empty seats in any church in the world? Many see God
as some sort of cosmic bell hop only to be called upon for an
errand. At best, the world manages a slight tip of the hat
toward God as some sort of honorary Chairman of the Board. No
glory though. No, the glory in our world goes to the Madonnas
and the Michael Jacksons, the Magic Johnsons and Michael Jordans.
The crowds cheer the gladiators, the Mike Tysons and Razor
Ruddocks. Occasionally, there are hopeful signs - here and there
a few new faces in the church, a new baby baptized, a
confirmation class that unites with the congregation - small
victories in what appears to be a losing war. But we are
convinced there will be more to the story. "The world appears to
ignore you, O God. NEVERTHELESS, `Thine is the Glory.'"
One wonders why God puts up with us. Once in a fit of
temper, Martin Luther shouted, "If I were God and the world had
treated me as it treated Him, I should have kicked the wretched
thing to pieces long ago." A little boy in Sunday School prayed
fervently, "Dear God, please bless everybody but my brother
Tommy." The teacher replied that God did indeed understand that
little brothers are sometimes hard to live with, but that God
LOVED Tommy. "Then He's a mighty funny kind of a God," the
little boy said. In our own way and for our own reasons, we tend
to agree.
"Thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory." But the
question remains: Are we just whistling through the graveyard?
Are we like little children, trying to affirm what we know is not
true by tightly closing our eyes and trying to make our dream
real by endlessly repeating our hope? "Thine is the Kingdom, the
Power and the Glory...Thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the
Glory." Does the prayer end with a great collective self-deception? Not at all.
Perhaps we would do well to understand what we say in the
way the Hebrew prophets understood things. Their ancient
language uses strange and wonderful grammar. It speaks of the
certain future in the present tense. The grammar says, what God
says WILL BE already IS. The end of our prayer declares that in
spite of those who presently appear to exercise the rule, have
the power and get the glory, in spite of everything that appears
to threaten us, this is the world's future: God's Kingdom will
come, God's will shall be done! We cannot say how or when, but
the promises of God stand sure.(8)
"For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory." This
is an affirmation of confident faith in the face of all that is
wrong out there. It is more than a mere doxology - it is a word
of hope for you and me and everyone who has ever been drenched in
the storms of life. It is a word of hope for this old world that
says "the wrong shall fail, the right prevail."
Quietly now. Listen for it as we prepare to come to the
Lord's Table. Faintly to be heard over the din of police
whistles and fire sirens, the whine of fighter bombers and scud
missiles, the anguished cries of the mothers of murdered
children, you can begin to make it out. Slowly but surely it
begins building to crescendo: "The kingdoms of this world have
become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. And he shall
reign forever and ever." Yes! With the mighty chorus of
Christians through the ages we join our voices and shout, "Thine
is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory forever. Amen." And
AMEN!
Happy Easter.
1. Quoted by Eugene Osterhaven, The Faith of the Church, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans
Publishing, 1982), p. 165 2. "Westminster Confession of Faith," The Book of Confessions, (Louisville, KY: Office of the
General Assembly, Presbyterian Church, USA), 6.012 3. From the ABA Banker's Weekly quoted by the Joyful Noiseletter 4. William Temple, "The Sovereignty of God," Twenty Centuries of Great Preaching, Volume
IX, Fant and Pinson, eds., (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1971), p. 189 5. Albert Curry Winn, A Christian Primer, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), pp.
79-80 6. David Gelman, "The Moral Minority," Newsweek, 5/6/91, p. 63 7. John Leith, The Reformed Imperative, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1988), p. 75 8. Winn, pp. 80-81
Not only does [God] sustain this universe (as He once
founded it) by His boundless might, regulate it by His
wisdom, preserve it by His goodness, and especially
rule mankind by His righteousness and judgment, bear
with it in His mercy, watch over it by His protection;
but also...no drop will be found either of wisdom and
light, or of righteousness or power or rectitude or of
genuine truth, which does not flow from Him and of
which He is not the cause.(1)
In our Westminster Confession of Faith we affirm
"God...alone [is the] fountain of all being, OF whom, THROUGH
whom, and TO whom, are all things; and hath most sovereign
dominion over them, to do BY them, FOR them, or UPON them,
whatsoever himself pleases."(2) In modern parlance, God is the
boss of bosses. The sovereignty of God has always been the
bedrock of Reformed theology.
click and send us mail