stand and face God is also a beginning; the “Halt!” which is directed at us is also a command to march, “Forward!” The death-line of our existence is also a line of life’s beginning, the line of grace. That sharp incision which separates us from God is also the boundary by which we partake of His invisible, everlasting being. Just that quest after God cannot tear us away, it cannot cease, it cannot be discharged, for the quest is the answer. This is the new thing about this truth: we stand in the light of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus, weighed of God, dying His death with Him and living His life with Him. We never come forth from God and yet we are never forsaken of God. We cannot get along with Him and yet we cannot leave off continually questing after Him anew. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God—and yet this corruption must put on incorruption and this mortality must put on immortality. We are created beings, but we are created by God. We are dust and ashes in his sight, but we are never without hope of salvation and glory. Wanderers between two worlds, travelling from here to yonder, nearing always the yonder from the here. For the Lord, in whose hands we are, is the Lord of life, because he is the Lord of death.
And now: The ways of a man are clean in his own eyes. Here we are in the midst of what we already understand all too well. Here is where all of us live, in the circle of our duties and obligations, the cares and the joys of our life, whether significant or insignificant. Here we live and weigh, each with his own particular character, with his own particular fortune, with his own particular light, or, it may be, with his own darkness which is given him. Here is where we live and compare ourselves unconsciously with others who are either better or worse off than we, or who are faring better or worse than we. Here is where the whole of mankind lives, in the peculiar twilight of the present moment, in which no one knows whether the day will dawn or whether it will now become a darker night; here the nations, parties, classes live with their particular necessities and particular truths, here also dwell the multitudinous individuals who go their lonely ways with their thoughts and aspirations, with that which they would love to promote and proclaim. And every man’s ways are clean in his own eyes. And each one thinks that he is justified in walking his own way and convinced that he must walk in precisely that way in which he is walking, nursing his inner complaints or his joys in his workaday conduct, his love or his hate.
We can quarrel with one another about what we regard in our own eyes. One could say to another: You do not mean well, or, you have no intention of meaning well. It is not right for you to weep and to laugh then and there, to speak and behave thus and thus. Look and take notice how I regard things in my own sight. Behold, how clean my way is. One can also lose his zeal to quarrel about what others regard as good and clean. But what is clean, if every man can regard his way as clean? Does it not all amount to this, that our ways are all unclean? Behold, that is our life, when faced with the great “but” of the Bible. In the face of that “but” all the life of mankind is clean and, yet, nothing is clean. All yes and all no. Whoever is satisfied in this pride and doubt in this twilight and fog, does not hear this “but.” Whoever cannot endure this twilight hears and notices and understands. He places himself in the unambiguous light which falls upon our lives from on high.
But the Lord weigheth the spirits. Are our ways clean or unclean, are we right or wrong in our living, thinking and speaking, if the Lord weighs the spirits? We must say, No, we are not right. Who can be right in God’s judgment? Who can remain calm and self-reliant when he is placed in the scales of God? Who is there that cares to stand before Him? No, in His presence we can but become terrified, become humble; in His sight all this strife about what is clean in our own eyes comes to an end, before Him everything that would stand and remain firm is shattered and dissolved. But we must say Yes, too, for who does not have the right, who could not secure the right through the grace of God? Who could not be secure, calm and hopeful if he is in the scale of God? Who cannot stand in the power of forgiveness? Are we not His own, known of Him, moved by Him? Does not the death-line, which is the life-line, pass through the midst of our life? Why should not our ways be clean before Him?
No and Yes can be said of us, No and Yes is the truth of our lives. In God there is no opposition to us. In God we persevere, for in Him is stimulus, life, hope. There is nothing but Yes and No in God, only because of the Yes. Those people who have heard the “but” no longer are disturbed about the No and the Yes; they pilgrim, they toil, they pray from one to the other; they have, even as prisoners, something of the freedom of the coming world within themselves. Fearful and certain in spirit they are even now God’s witnesses and preparers of the way. Do not let anyone say, “I cannot hear.” Jesus has spoken, even to our life: I am the resurrection and the life!
The name of Jehovah is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it and is safe.—Proverbs 18:10.
I am not sure that we have often prayed, with understanding and sincerity, the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer: “Hallowed be thy name!” We presume to understand what is meant by the “kingdom” and the “will” of God, in the second and third petitions. We feel that these and the petitions that follow them directly concern us. But what is meant by the name of God? On this point we are not in the clear. To be honest, does not the term sound strange and distant to us? Have we not secretly asked ourselves what really is the vital and weighty thing in the word ‘name’? We found no answer, in spite of the excellent definition of the term in the Lutheran and Heidelberg Catechisms. This is a fact worthy of consideration. For the petition, “hallowed be thy name,” was the first that Jesus put into the mouth of his disciples; and it is the gate of entrance to all the others. If we do not enter by this gate we shall be perplexed and confused when we offer the other petitions, however well we may think we understand them. This is not merely a so-called “religious” question. For as one prays so one lives and walks and behaves.
He who prays our Lord’s Prayer aright will be heard; in difficult and adverse circumstances his way will become clearer, more steady, more perfect, as perfect as the way of a man can be. Indeed we do not see many men walking so perfect a way. Even we ourselves are not men of this sort. Perchance the real trouble in our difficult times is that we are so dull of hearing and that in our lives so little of the perfect way is manifest. On this account we are restless and like the disciples we are driven to ask Jesus: “Lord, teach us to pray!”—to pray so that we shall be heard. Both they and we have been taught how to pray; therefore we are not to learn something new, but to apply and practice what we have been taught. To speak honestly, we stumble, as it were, into the Lord’s Prayer, when we offer the petition, “hallowed be thy name!” and when we think we are advancing into the other petitions, which we presume to understand better than the first, we are actually standing still. Our failure to listen attentively, our uncertain and disorderly conduct, the want of answers to our prayers, is evidence of this fact; and, if we are not to sink like Peter into the waves of the sea, we must begin anew with the cry, “Lord, help us!” yea, with the simplest and profoundest thing—with the beginning, with the name of the Lord.
But what is meant by the name of the Lord? The answer of the text is not learned, not pious, not ingenious; but short and complete as the answers of the Bible usually are: “The name of the Lord is a strong tower.” We are quite right when we feel that here we have to do with something alien, that we are standing on the outside, as it were, against an astounding other which is not in any way a part of ourselves.
The name of the Lord does not come from the heart, the head, or the conscience. One cannot experience Him, that is, take Him into one’s life so that He becomes a part of oneself. The name of the Lord is and remains far rather a contradiction that is raised against us, a hostile bridge-head in the midst of our land. Jesus teaches us to pray: “Our Father who art in heaven!” With these words the deepest things, the only thing necessary, all is said, that we can say to God and that has the promise of being heard. Upon these four words: “Our Father in heaven,” one’s life
