“Hallowed be your name”

Meditation 3: “Your”

The importance of “your” can be lost among the greater words in this phrase. But this word focuses us on the emphatic singularity of Divine holiness. The first two commandments of the Ten Commandments echo this point by accentuating God’s role as God (Exo 20:3-4).

Nothing else in our lives can achieve such a level of “holiness”. In our sin, we make earthly things more important than God. In our sin, we elevate unholy things to the level of God’s holiness. But in this prayer we are focused on the divine simplicity of God’s holiness. God alone is holy. This is how we should pray.