Today's Catechesis on Amen

Reading: 1 John 5

14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

This is the Word of the Lord. R.

Catechism: p. 325

The Conclusion

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.* Amen.

What does this mean? This means that I should be certain that these petitions are pleasing to our Father in heaven, and are heard by Him; for He Himself has commanded us to pray in this way and has promised to hear us. Amen, amen means "yes, yes, it shall be so."

*These words were not in Luther's Small Catechism.

Catechesis

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Confirmation exam (art not my thing)

I remember well the day of my public examination in confirmation. It was the 70's so of course they didn't ask us questions and expect you to know any answers. Instead, they expected us to do presentations and talk about what it meant to you. Lord, have mercy. I was assigned the portion of the Catechism that we just reviewed, and had to do an art project on it and talk about it. I am not in any way gifted when it comes to the visual arts, and so I remember the wretched poster that I threw together to convey something about how I felt about the glory of God, His power and kingdom.

Focused on exactly the wrong thing: "for thine..."

Yup, I focused exactly on what the explanation to the Catechism ignores. If you are a footnote reader, you'll have noted the asterisk and the fact that the words "for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever" and I quote "were not in Luther's Small Catechism."

Church's doxological addition, not part of the prayer

A bit of research shows that they are only tenuously in manuscripts of the NT. In fact, they most certainly crept into the text from the church's liturgy. They were the response of the people to the beauty of the Lord's Prayer, but they were not part of the prayer he gave us.

But AMEN is

The little word "Amen!" however was very much a part of that prayer that the Lord taught us to say. That is, when you've asked the kind heavenly Father for all these things that we've reviewed in the petitions of the prayer, Jesus you to add this little word: "Amen." And notice like so many of our liturgical words, we don't translate it. It simply comes to us from the Hebrew like alleluia or hosanna. It's a bit of Hebrew that everybody speaks. But, of course, it doesn't mean "Prayer over time to move on." If we were to English it we couldn't do much better than the Catechism taught: "Yes, yes, it shall be so."

Faith's word

Amen, then, is faith's word. It's called forth by the Word of God. And never forget that when you pray the Lord's Prayer you are not just praying human words, but words taught you by the God-Man, our Lord Jesus. They are first God's Word and then they become your words, and that's why they are so powerful that you can know that what you ask in them is nothing that God is going to say: "Well, let me think about that and I'll get back to you." No. These are the words that when the Father hears them, HE says: "You got it, child. It's yours."

I can't help but wonder if John were thinking of the Our Father when he wrote the words of our text today:

14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

We KNOW that what we just asked we are guaranteed to receive precisely because we asked according to His will. His Son taught us to pray this way AND promised to hear us!

So here's the challenge: to learn to fit every prayer you pray into the Our Father. In it's seven petitions, you cover the gamut of human need while we live in this world and journey toward the home of our Father that Jesus has prepared for us by His passion, death, and resurrection. It's all there, and when you pray this way, you can shout or sing your hearty Amen and walk away in utter peace and confidence. No, maybe yes, maybe no, maybe, maybe I don't know. Now with this prayer. With this prayer it is a solid: Yes, yes, it shall be so.

The confirmation kid I was fixated on the beautiful words (and they are beautiful) of the doxology, but solidly missed the point. For better than any of our praises is the Amen Jesus teaches us to speak to a prayer that's been tucked into the prayer He gave us. Yes, yes, it shall be so.