The first petition in the Lord’s Prayer is for God’s name to be hallowed (Matthew 6:9). Many people, I believe, pray this without fully grasping the depth of its meaning.
While I may not entirely comprehend what it means to hallow God’s name, I have grown increasingly appreciative of this prayer.
God’s name represents His reputation, and His reputation is set apart as sacred, significant, and infinitely valuable through two primary means: how His people respond to Him and how His actions unfold throughout history.
Instead of hallowing God’s name, Ezekiel’s audience had profaned it. They reduced God to the level of the surrounding nations’ false gods and participated in practices that were universally abhorrent.
From the very beginning of His interactions with humanity, God has desired for us to know who He is. He understands how much we lose when we fail to grasp His nature and character.
Therefore, when Israel fell short, God declared, “I will act to glorify and honor My name so that people may come to know Me and respond to Me as they should.”
Therefore say to the house of Israel: Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came.
I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations and which you have profaned among them, and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when through you I display my holiness before their eyes (Ezekiel 36.22-23).
When we consider how God might choose to honor His reputation, He could perform an extraordinary act of power that would leave all humanity in awe. With His infinite wisdom, He could display such profound insight that we would be utterly astonished by His brilliance.
Instead, God chose a different path. He came as a human being, suffered, and died on the cross, then rose again on the third day to reveal His true nature and unparalleled kindness.
Before this, He demonstrated His commitment by declaring, “I will bring My people back from exile and transform their hearts.”
I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land.
I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.
A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
I will put my Spirit within you and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.
Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God (Ezekiel 36.24-28).
These words were spoken to defeated exiles living in a labor camp in Babylon. These individuals would never see Jerusalem again. In fact, they would soon learn that the Babylonians had completely destroyed the city and desecrated the temple.
Amid their despair, they heard a remarkable promise: God would glorify His name by bringing their entire nation back from exile and giving them new hearts, hearts capable of serving and worshiping Him in the way He has always desired.
Many of my friends understand the deep despair of exile—being cut off from community through incarceration, estranged from family due to poor decisions, or alienated from good health because of how they have treated their bodies.
At their lowest point, some hear God’s profound promise: “I will give you a new heart. I will remove your hardened heart, resistant to Me, and replace it with a heart filled with My Spirit. I will dwell within you, giving you a renewed purpose and direction for your life.”
One man who experienced what I’ve described spent eight years in federal prison for the actions that led to his incarceration. After his release, he told me, “I hate everything I did that landed me in prison, but I wouldn’t trade any of it for the chance to know Jesus as my Savior.”
Exile doesn’t have to be the end of the story. It can be the rock-bottom moment where we look up, find God, and allow Him to glorify His name by transforming us. In His grace, He brings us out of exile and into the life we’ve always longed for but didn’t know how to reach.
YouTube Discussion
Rudy Ross, Bruce Kirby, and I discussed this passage on YouTube today. It is on the Bob Spradling channel.
Real Voices 