Friday-Thoughts on the Lord's Prayer

*** The German original was posted here yesterday.

“The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father (Latin: Pater Noster), is a central Christian prayer which, according to the New Testament, Jesus taught as the way to pray. …Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, and a shorter form in the Gospel of Luke. Lutheran theologian Harold Buls suggested that both were original, the Matthean version spoken by Jesus early in his ministry in Galilee, and the Lucan version one year later, very likely in Judea". (That was from Wikipedia.)

My oldest memories of saying the Lord’s Prayer are from my childhood. I wasn’t even in school yet. In the evening, my Father came to my bed side and after a good-night-story came prayer and then lights out and sleep. Like probably most children, I was not a bit tired and every minute of staying awake mattered. My first childhood prayer “Now I lay me down to sleep…” was therefore far too short. But in Sunday school we had already learned the Lord’s prayer, which was considerably longer and that was the one, my father had to pray with me.

I don’t think I understood most of it. The German word for “evil“ that was then still in use in the prayer was “übel” which I understood to refer to feeling sick, like from a car ride or after eating too many sweets. Also not sure if the modern word, used today in the German version of the Lord’s Prayer “erlöse und von dem Bösen” would have made more sense, as we used the word “böse” more to describe “angry”, like my mother was “böse“ when I didn’t tidy up my room.

Here in our Blog, I would like to share some thoughts on the Lord’s Prayer, Thursday in German and Fridays in English: my own, unless others would like to contribute: hahn@eaberlin.de.