The Doxology

Luke 16:19–31 ¹⁹“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day. ²⁰A beggar named Lazarus had been laid at his gate. Lazarus was covered with sores and ²¹longed to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Besides this, the dogs also came and licked his sores. ²²Eventually the beggar died, and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. ²³In hell, where he was in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus at his side. ²⁴He called out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me! Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in misery in this flame.’

²⁵“But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here, and you are in misery. ²⁶Besides all this, a great chasm has been set in place between us and you, so that those who want to cross from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

²⁷“He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s home, ²⁸because I have five brothers—to warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

²⁹“Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them.’

³⁰“‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

³¹“Abraham replied to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Amen. (Ephesians 1:3)

When you attended a worship service in a non-Lutheran church, have you ever kept praying the Lord’s Prayer when everyone else stopped? They ended the Lord’s Prayer with the words, “but deliver us from evil.” You continued praying, “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.”

These familiar words at the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer do not appear in some of the ancient manuscripts of the Gospels. It is possible that these words were added later by those copying the manuscripts. Whether these words were originally included or not, they are thoroughly scriptural and doctrinal. They are an appropriate conclusion or doxology to the Lord’s Prayer.

A doxology is a brief expression of praise to the Triune God. There are many doxologies in Scripture.

At the end of David’s reign, he is about to turn the kingdom over to his son, Solomon. In his prayer, David praises God, “To you, O Lord, belong greatness, power, glory, victory, and majesty, because everything in the heavens and on the earth belongs to you” (1 Chronicles 29:11). Those words sound very similar to the doxology of the Lord’s Prayer, don’t they?

St. Paul includes this doxology in Romans: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen” (Romans 11:33, 36).

St. John heard a magnificent doxology sung by 10,000 times 10,000 angels surrounding the throne of God, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing” (Revelation 5:12).

When we reintroduced the singing of the psalms into our Lutheran worship, the editors of Christian Worship: A Lutheran Hymnal added a common doxology to each of the 59 psalms in the hymnal: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.”

Out of the 623 hymns in Christian Worship, I counted 53 doxologies of praise to the Triune God contained in the final stanzas.

We are dwelling in a world where the Evil One reigns. He teaches false doctrine to destroy God’s name; he rules over this earthly kingdom; his will is done; he hinders our daily bread; he accuses us of our sins; he leads us into temptation; and drives us into evil.

It can be demoralizing to battle against Satan’s temptations and suffer the onslaught of his evil. Perhaps that’s why the early church concluded the Lord’s Prayer with a doxology: “For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever.” These words remind us that Jesus Christ is really in control. We have this promise: “The Father rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14).

Why do we end so many hymns, psalms, and prayers with a doxology? A doxology reminds us that Jesus defeated Satan with his kingdom, power and glory. But not the way we would imagine it happening. Jesus’ kingdom is hidden in the weak forms of Word, water, bread and wine. Jesus’ power was made perfect in weakness as God covered his divinity with humanity. Jesus’ glory was in the cruel, bloody cross. It is through the means of divine Word, Word in the flesh and Word on the cross that Jesus delivered us from the Evil One.

The kingdom, power and glory belong to Jesus. We have every confidence that Satan cannot snatch us away from the One who then gifts his kingdom and power to us so we may bask in his eternal glory.

We end all of our prayers with a resounding “Amen.”

Amen is a Hebrew word that was carried over into the Greek and is still used in the English. Amen means “To be certain” or “Make it so.” When the pastor says a prayer and the congregation responds with “Amen,” it means “That’s my prayer, too.”

We take our cue from Scripture where Asaph and his associates sang a thanksgiving prayer and the people responded with a rousing “Amen” (1 Chronicles 16:36).

After a reading of Scripture and a word of praise from Ezra, all the people lifted their hands and answered, “Amen! Amen” (Nehemiah 8:6)!

Amen occasionally appears at the end of doxologies in the psalms. “Blessed be his glorious name forever. May the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and Amen” (Psalm 72:19).

St. Paul ends a number of doxologies in his epistles with a joyous affirmative of Amen: “Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, came the Christ, who is God over all, eternally blessed. Amen” (Romans 9:5). “To him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen” (Ephesians 3:21).

In the Gospels, Amen appears at times at the beginning of Jesus’ teachings when he wants everyone’s attention: “Amen, I tell you …” (Matthew 5:18; 5:26; 6:2; etc.) With the Amen, Jesus is drawing our attention to the importance of what he is about to teach.

Do we ever use the word Amen casually in our prayers? Probably. Especially if we consider Amen as simply signaling the end of prayer. Then we can move onto something else – like eating our meal, sitting down after a long pastor’s prayer, the meeting is finally adjourned or we can fall asleep because we’re done praying.

But the Amen means so much more!

In the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, we are not so much asking for things as we are reminding God of his promises. We aren’t asking for God’s name to be holy, his kingdom to come or his will to be done. We are reminding God, “You taught us this prayer. You told us to pray for your name to be holy, your kingdom to come and your will be done. I’m praying this prayer because I know you’re going to do it. Amen Make it so. Amen.”

St. Paul says about the Lord’s Prayer and all our prayers: “In fact, as many promises as God has made, they have always been ‘Yes’ in him. For that reason we also say “Amen” through him to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 1:20).

The Amen is the nail that pins the Lord’s Prayer and any of our prayers to the promises of God. In the explanation of the doxology, Martin Luther writes in his Small Catechism:

We can be sure that these petitions are acceptable 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. Therefore we say, “Amen. Yes, it shall be so.”

In his Large Catechism, Luther hangs everything on faith that trusts God’s promises contained in the Lord’s Prayer:

But all depends upon this, that we learn also to say Amen, that is, that we do not doubt that our prayer is surely heard, and [what we pray] shall be done. For this is nothing else than the word of undoubting faith, which does not pray at a venture, but knows that God does not lie to him, since He has promised to grant it. (Large Catechism, par. 119)

Too often our prayers are small, timid, short-sighted and filled with doubt. Our prayers are usually all fourth petition prayers about daily bread. We pray for a good day or better health or a little success. Those are good things, but they are not great things. They are earthly, temporal things. We open our mouths, but not much.

David once prayed, “Open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise” (Psalm 51:15). With the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus puts everything in perspective. He teaches us to open our mouths wide to pray for heavenly, spiritual, divine things. Then our prayers become big and bold, with a wide perspective and filled with faith.

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he did not hand them a little prayer book. He gave them one specific prayer – the Lord’s Prayer.

The Lord’s Prayer should be our default prayer. We pray the Lord’s Prayer in the morning and evening at home, as part of chapel, at every worship service, and at the end of our council, elders’ and voters’ meetings. We will be learning to pray this prayer in modern English, as well as in Spanish. This prayer helps mold our personal prayers. The petitions of this prayer help mold our Christian living. When we don’t know what to pray for, we should pray the Lord’s Prayer. When we know exactly what we need to pray for, we should include the Lord’s Prayer.

Our Father in heaven loves to hear this prayer! These are his words. We get to pray them back to him.

Only the Son of God could have taught us such a short and simple, yet profound and all-inclusive prayer.

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer in faith, we have the confidence that we will be blessed like Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31). Lazarus may not have been blessed with lots of daily bread. He longed to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. But Jesus tells us that Lazarus was the one who was truly well fed! He was fed with the living bread that comes down from above, from the Lord’s table in heaven (Psalm 23:5).

Lazarus does not have any clothes to cover his body on earth. But in heaven, he is clothed in royal robes. He used to sit outside the home of the rich man. Now he is sitting at Abraham’s side in God’s mansion. He is escorted to his new heavenly home by God’s angels.

Spiritually speaking, we are like Lazarus. We are covered in the sores of our guilt. We are clothed in the rags of our righteousness. Sin makes us lonely and miserable. Down and destitute.

But Jesus is the King who becomes a beggar. He is the rich man who did not rejoice in his riches but left his heavenly mansion. He became a beggar with us beggars. He took our human flesh to redeem our sinful human flesh. He took our place so we might have his place. He thirsted so we might drink the cup of salvation. He was hungry so we might be fed with at the Lord’s banquet table. He died and rose so that when we die, the angels might take our souls to enjoy life eternal at Abraham’s side.

In this way, the Lord’s kingdom comes, his will is done, and we are delivered from evil. All our prayers are “Yes” in Christ! All our petitions in Christ are answered with a confident “Amen!” Amen.

Now to him, who is able, according to the power that is at work within us, to do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)