The Lord's Prayer: Who art in Heaven

How did your praying with just the words “our Father” go? Did you make a word picture and add your own prayer requests? Did you calligraphy or make an acrostic? Did you just sit with the two words and let them soak into your soul? How does it feel to just sit with ‘our Father’? Feel free to share in the comments if you want.

This week we will look at the words ‘who art in Heaven’. This phrase reminds us that God’s home is heaven. But what does that mean? What is ‘heaven’? Where is it?

Enter the Presence: I suppose our modern concept of ‘heaven’ is different from that of a first century Jew. After all, in the first century, heaven was the sky above that was vast and unreachable. We have pierced the sky with our rockets and visited the moon and even other planets. We have seen images of stars and galaxies so far away that they would have seemed impossible to a first century person. Astronomers cannot really guess how many stars there might be in the universe. David Kornreich “used a very rough estimate of 10 trillion galaxies in the universe. Multiplying that by the Milky Way's estimated 100 billion stars results in a large number indeed: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars, or a "1" with 24 zeros after it. Kornreich emphasized that number is likely a gross underestimation, as more detailed looks at the universe will show even more galaxies.”

I’m sure the magnitude of stars in heaven would have been a shock to Abraham who was told by God, "Look up at the sky and count the stars--if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." (Genesis 15:5) We are heirs of that promise.We are one of ‘Father Abraham’s sons [or daughters]. (You remember the Sunday School song!) If there are really 10²⁴ stars, then there are that many beloved sons and daughters of God! Abraham’s clear desert sky would have shown with myriad stars, but he could not have seen beyond the Milky Way, nor imagined that there were stars beyond what he could see. (The picture below of a section of the Milky Way from the Hubble Telescope shows how packed with stars the sky really is.)

Stand In Awe: Yet I think, I hope, there is still some mystery about heaven. Even the scientists aren’t sure of the extent of it. We may never really know how many stars there are. We can, however, know the One who made the stars. Psalm 8 is reminds us of the One who is in charge. We are told that God’s glory is ‘above the heavens’ and that the moon and stars are the ‘work of God’s fingers’. Read through the Psalm slowly. Does the psalm give you a different sense of ‘heaven’ than the scientific estimates of numbers?   

1 O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! 

You have set your glory above the heavens.
2   Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
   to silence the enemy and the avenger. 

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
   the moon and the stars that you have established;
4 What are human beings that you are mindful of them,
   mortals that you care for them? 

5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
   and crowned them with glory and honor.
6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
   you have put all things under their feet,
7 All sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
8 The birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
   whatever passes along the paths of the seas. 

9 O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Involve your Heart: Read through the Psalm again, perhaps in a different translation. Is there a phrase that makes you stop and think about God and God’s heaven? If you have a chance, find a place beyond the city lights where you can see a wide expanse of the night sky without interference from street lights. Even if you cannot get out beyond the city. Turn off your lights and sit outside looking up at the stars. Just sit and look at the heavenly skies.

Consider what it means to pray to Our Father ‘who art in heaven’, yet who loves us intimately as one of Abraham’s children.

Perhaps you’ll want to continue the same activity you began last week. You could add to your ZenTangle around the word ‘Pray’.

You might prefer to find a way to record your impressions in a photo or drawing of the night sky, or by composing your own psalm God ‘who art in heaven’. 
Draw a bunch of stars on a paper. Each star is a person, place, event, or other prayer request. Can you pray for every star on your page?

Maybe you want to have some fun and sing the Father Abraham song and do all the motions, remembering the promise of God to the patriarch!

This week focus on just the words “who art in Heaven”.

Next week we’ll look at the phrase ‘Hallowed be Thy Name’.