Deliver us from evil
Throughout Lent, we have been reflecting on the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. We conclude those reflections tonight with the seventh and final petition, “Deliver us from evil.” What is evil, and how does God deliver us from it?
Theologian Philip Bartelt writes:
Even today, demons and devils enjoy more attention in Hollywood than the pulpit. Shows like “Lucifer”, “Supernatural”, and the latest Netflix release of “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” treat the demonic as entertainment rather than reality, as fantasy rather than non-fiction. But when Christians gather together and pray the seventh petition, ‘Deliver us from evil,’ we do not pray against a fantasy, but against the evil one himself… We confess that evil is not an abstract, impersonal principle, but a very concrete and personal reality.
We mustn’t confuse this petition with Jesus’ prayer on the night when he was betrayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me” (Mt. 26:39). We could paraphrase, “Lord, deliver me from the suffering that’s about to come my way.”
Jesus does not pray, “Father, deliver me from evil.” It is the Father’s will that he must suffer and die for the sins of the world, not Satan’s. Jesus’ suffering and death is an incredible, paradoxical, surprising work of God, not Satan. The physical pain and his eventual death are the just punishment for evil, but Jesus will endure those things with holy intent.
This is all a part of the work of the cross. To forgive the sins of the world, God heaps them all on his only Son and gives him the just punishment for them. To defeat death forever, God sends his only Son directly into it. Jesus, the Son of God, becomes the scapegoat, the place of punishment, for our sin.
Bartelt continues:
As we persevere under this present wicked age, we are subject to all the Devil’s wiles… From all this we pray that God would deliver us and give us every good blessing of body and soul… While this petition firmly fixes our eyes on this present wicked age, it also draws us into the age to come.
Jesus, too, is focussed not on what will come his way in the next hours, but on the eternal future that God is bringing about for all creation.
As much as this petition laments evil and the works of the evil one, it also proclaims the victory of the resurrected Lord. It proclaims that, in Christ, God has delivered us from all evil, and will indeed bring us to rest at last in that new creation with him forever.
So, just as we begin the Lord’s Prayer in view of our adoption by baptism, so we end the Lord’s Prayer with the promises of baptism ringing in our ears.”
As we wait with Jesus in the garden, we anticipate the suffering and death to come, knowing that it is into that suffering and death that we are baptised. Jesus was afraid just as we are in the face of suffering, but the next prayer he prays is the crucial one: “Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Mt. 26:39).
God’s will is going to be done on Good Friday as the Lamb of God suffers and dies for the sin of the world, but let’s not forget the longer view: God’s will is also that the Son that dies is also brought to life again. It is also into this life that we are baptised, and it is in this life that we share as God’s “new covenant” people.
We give thanks to God for giving us his Son as the sacrifice to end all sacrifices, and also for giving us his own prayer to pray.
