Prayer: The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory
Scott Lyons
8/10/2010

We have come to the end of the Lord’s Prayer. We have laid before God the fullness of our need in seven petitions. And afterward, as we pray this prayer, some of us conclude it with, “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” This phrase is included in Byzantine manuscripts of Matthew 6:13. This is not an eighth petition but a doxology (literally “a word of glory”) sung to God.

What is the purpose of this non-petition we often include at the end the Lord’s Prayer? It is an alleluia, a word of praise. It is a final word, an act of glory that says that God is God and there is none like him. He is not impotent, but mighty. He is not incompetent, but able. He is not uncaring, but love himself. He is good and compassionate and merciful. He is the Almighty, the Alpha and the Omega. He is the Maker of all things, seen and unseen, and what he has made testifies to his power and his love.

Furthermore, this word of glory is given on the heels of our petition to be rescued from the evil one. So at the end of the Lord’s Prayer we are not left to fear, but left with trust and hope and rest. John Chrysostom says, “He sets before us even [the evil one], who is warring against us, brought into subjection, though he seem to oppose, God for a while permitting it. For in truth he too is among God’s servants, though of the degraded class, and those guilty of offense; and he would not dare set upon any of his fellow servants, had he not first received license from above. And why say I, ‘his fellow servants?’ Not even against swine did he venture any outrage, until He Himself allowed him; nor against flocks, nor herds, until he had received permission from above.” God’s is the kingdom. His is the power. His is the glory. We are witnesses. We give testament. It is, after all, our story: In Christ we are the inheritors of those for whom he parted the Red Sea. It is our spiritual ancestors who saw the walls of Jericho fall at the trumpets’ blasts. We eat of the bread that Christ blessed when he fed 5,000. We stumble out of the tomb with Lazarus. We see Christ crucified and are born in the blood and water that flowed out of his side. We know the risen Christ in the breaking of the bread on the way to Emmaus. We give witness to these miracles, these acts of God that are repeated throughout the years of our own lives and in the lives of others we have known—and in the lives of other whom they have know—backward and backward to the act itself. Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory.

On the heels of seven petitions that ask everything that is needed – the fullness of prayer and human need; the epitome, as Tertullian says in De Oratione, of the whole gospel – we sing a word of praise: God is mighty to save. This doxology is a sign and seal of all that is already fulfilled in Christ. Blessed be God forever. Alleluia. Amen.

The Lord taught us these words. And he showed us that he is their fulfillment. The Lord’s Prayer proclaims Christ. Let us pray these words daily and find their fulfillment in him.