“And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from (the) evil (one).”

When I started writing about the Lord’s Prayer, a friend of mine said that she couldn’t wait to see what I was going to do with this phrase. Lots of potential controversy lurks behind its words. Questions about the origin of evil arise. What about God’s sovereignty and his will that we have been told to pray about? What is the difference between tempting and testing, and does God actually do one, the other, either, or both?

I’m tempted (by whom I can’t say, but surely not by the Lord) to take on the thorny questions and see what speculations they stir up. But as I read and pray this petition, it becomes clear that Jesus is most likely not interested in our brilliant interpretations of Greek words and their Aramaic predecessors. I’m rather going to propose that he would like us to look at the phrase from a less-sophisticated, less-clever perspective.

Think about it this way: We have prayed about our dependence on our Father; about the need to surrender to his will and kingdom; about the blessings of being forgiven and forgiving. That’s an overwhelming challenge to our sense of self-importance and to our pride. But if we’re coming to our senses as we pray, that challenge will open us to how much goodness there is in God, and how little of it there can sometimes be in us. I especially find it telling that Jesus places this asking for protection and deliverance immediately after our plea for mercy.

It seems to me that Jesus is having us make a couple of simple requests. First, keep us away from our natural tendencies to oppose the prayer that we have been making. Don’t let us fall into self-will, independence, bitterness, resentment, selfishness. Help us, help us, help us. Don’t let us be tested beyond what we can endure. Give us that free gift of grace so that we can stand against temptation. Grace to walk in freedom from our selves and to gain God’s own humility, his own faith, his own love. Grace to reveal Jesus’ own life to the world in the way that we live.

Second, we recognize the power of evil in the world that seeks to consume our souls. Disciples have enemies outside of themselves, and they are not equipped in themselves to overcome those enemies. When we prayed, “Your kingdom come,” we made the declaration that there IS someone who is greater than both the evil in us and around us. And he can deliver us even from the places where we have collaborated with the world in opposition to his will and kingdom.

After all, an honest evaluation of too many of my daily life choices shows that I am more a collaborator than I would like to admit. This prayer for deliverance is the heart cry of the disciple who is conscious that he or she is a person of divided loyalties. The Holy Spirit has, in the words of Scott Brenner, “given me a desire to obey that will never fade away.” At the same time, there are more than enough temptations to be led out of, and they don’t seem to be fading away either.

Every day I have the opportunity to see a parade of alluring images. New models of my favorite vehicles appear, unbidden (but not unwanted) on the road, in online articles, and eventually in my mind’s eye. My inbox receives a constant barrage of emails touting the most powerful stock trading secrets, guaranteed to make me an instant millionaire (just click here to see how!!!). If I want to, I can zap away that annoying last vestige of belly fat, grow enough hair to make Cher jealous, or transform my body into something that Atlas could only imagine (only 25 payments of $29.95 and 10 minutes a day).  I can buy, own, have, spend, and use whatever I need to convince myself that I am Somebody Special.

However much I outwardly scoff at such simplistic, shallow, and deceptive promises, the onslaught is a wearying one that finds some resonance in me. I have to lay the need to pray “deliver us from evil” at my own doorstep. But I also pray it with absolute confidence that, whatever evil I find within or without, it has more than met its match. My prayer for “Help!” has already been answered by the one who has refused to collaborate with temptation – the one who has “been tempted in all things as we are, but without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). He not only sympathizes with us in our weakness, but strengthens us to overcome. He has annulled our “covenant with death” (Isaiah 28:18), and forgiven our treachery.

So whether the final line that we pray is in all the manuscripts of the Bible or not, it is still appropriate to declare it: The kingdom, the power, and the glory are his forever – amen! His call and purpose for our lives is great, and he perfectly able to fulfill them.

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Thanks.