Bethany Bullet - March 9, 2009

“Deliver us!”

If you’ve ever seen the animated movie of Moses’ life called, The Prince of Egypt you’ll recall the opening number swelling to its crescendo, cast singing at the top of their voices, “Deliver us!” Then with pounding force, sounds the typical “boom,” a la The Lion King.

There is a pounding force that surges with the final petition in our Lord’s Prayer, “Deliver us from evil.” Of course, what is atypical about this petition is its ambiguity in the original. These words of Jesus can be interpreted as either, “Deliver us from evil” or “Deliver us from the evil one.” Commentators, preachers and theologians have in typical fashion spent much time wrangling over which interpretation is the best. I think perhaps leaving the ambiguity is exactly what Matthew would have us do. Jesus is teaching us that evil exists. It is situational and an individual. It is action and person and we pray to be delivered from evil and the evil one.

When he teaches his own to pray this petition Jesus is also teaching us that evil has no power over him. He is able to deliver us from evil and the evil one! Christ and the devil are not equal in power and just simply two opposite sides of the same coin. The devil, truly coined the evil one, the father of lies and the prince of this world is not in league with the Lord. The devil is a created being. The ring leader of those who rebelled from God’s rule and reign and led Adam and Eve to do the same; he is not incompetent but neither is he omnipotent. While his goal is ambitious, to gain the whole world, and his offering is the same, to give the whole world, the world is not his to give, for it is God’s creation and in Christ it has experienced God’s redemption.

Jesus has already accomplished our deliverance and now invites us to pray for the same.

• In the desert Jesus silenced the devil’s temptations. Temptations of flesh, faithfulness and fidelity we all answered with the Word of God.
• On the cross Jesus trumped the devil’s accusations. When Jesus cried it is finished, not only was His mission accomplished but the evil one’s case against you was crushed and the verdict was declared, by the grace of God in Christ and through faith in Him your sins are forgiven and you are declared innocent and acquitted of all crimes.
• At His resurrection Jesus cancelled the devil’s reservations. How he would have loved to take the world to hell, but Jesus, when He triumphed o’er the grave brought life and immortality to light.
• In this prayer, in this very petition, Jesus now invalidates the devil’s intimidation – that he, the evil one, is an equal player on the eternal stage, with our God and His Son the Holy One of Israel. He can, He has and He will. . . “Deliver us.”