Amen!
Q #128: What does your conclusion to this prayer mean?
A: “For the kingdom, and the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever” means:
We have made all these petitions of you because, as our all powerful king, you are both willing and able to give us all that is good; and because your holy name, and not we ourselves, should receive all the praise, forever.
Q #129: What does that little word “Amen” express?
A: “Amen” means:
This shall truly and surely be! It is even more sure that God listens to my prayer than that I really desire what I pray for.
What a wonderful way for the catechism to end, with the short Q&A about the meaning of “that little word ‘Amen.’” A major theme throughout the catechism, from the very beginning to here at the very end, has been comfort. What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own but that I belong, in body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. What greater comfort could there be in prayer than the certainty of God hearing our requests?
After all, it is such a comfort because of what we have learned about God throughout the catechism. We have confessed that this God—the one about whom we read in Scripture and come to know in Jesus Christ—is the one in whom the kingdom and the power and the glory reside, now and forever. This is the God who created us good and in his own image so that we might know him and live with him in eternal happiness to praise and glorify him (QA6). It is also the God who is just and merciful (QA11), so that when we fell into sin, he did not leave us to face eternal punishment but sent a mediator, his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to completely deliver us and make us right with him (QA18). This is also the God we trust so much that we do not doubt he will provide whatever we need for body and soul, and will turn to our good whatever adversity he sends upon us in this sad world (QA26). Even when we face the deepest adversity, this Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—always has our best interests at heart. This is the God who has restored us by his Spirit into his image, so that with our whole lives we may show that we are thankful to God for his benefits, so that he may be praised through us (QA86). This is the God we serve and whose laws we follow out of gratitude for the salvation he grants us in Christ.
And yet, because we still live in a broken world, Jesus taught us to pray for our spiritual and physical needs. We often have a deep, acute sense of those needs. We feel them when we struggle to live up to God’s law, and when we feel separated from him. We desire nothing more than to be cleansed of guilt and restored to relationship with him. We feel them when we lose our job and struggle to put food on the table, and when we feel abandoned or lonely. We desire nothing more than our daily bread and to be needed and loved and part of a community. These are often our deepest desires that we feel most surely.
Could there be any greater comfort, then, to know that God listens to our pleas? Could there be any greater comfort to know that God’s benevolent care for us is even more certain than these deepest desires? Thanks be to God!
~Pastor Matt