Greetings in the Name of our Victorious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! It has been a few weeks since we celebrated our Savior’s resurrection from the grave, and it is still several weeks from my departure from Staunton to return to the Seminary. Yet, it is at this time we find ourselves at the end of the Lord’s Prayer in our monthly writings from the Vicar.

We pray to Our Father in Heaven each petition, concluding with “But deliver us from evil.” Or, at least, that’s where it ends in the Scriptures. Since Jesus first outlined how to pray to His disciples, we have added “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.” Perhaps these were added to really strengthen our speaking the word “Amen.” Amen means we know it to be true as fact that God will hear and answer our prayer. There is no question. He does. Why? Because of that great victory Jesus earned for us at the cross of Calvary. God’s hearing and answering our prayer has nothing to do with our own miserable works and everything to do with Jesus’ perfect works in our place. This is how we can confidently come to God as our Father, as though we were addressing our earthly dads.

Here at the end of the Lord’s Prayer, our final petition and request of our Father is to deliver us from evil, or, more specifically, the evil one. That’s what the Greek actually translates to say. We often think of the evil trio: sin, death, and the devil, but Luther attributes sin and death to the devil’s actions, and so when we pray against the evil one, it is against all forms of evil. These forms of evil are not limited to these three, either. When we pray deliver us from (the) evil (one), we pray for deliverance from “poverty, disgrace, death, and, in short, all the tragic misery and heartache, of which there is incalculably much on earth.”

As you know, the devil is a sore loser. He knows that he has been crushed at the cross of Calvary, yet like a snake without a head, he continues to writhe and cause damage even now. “For because the devil is not only a liar but a murderer as well, he incessantly seeks our life and vents his anger by causing accidents and injury to our bodies. He crushes some and drives others to insanity; some he drowns in water, and many he hounds to suicide or other dreadful catastrophes. Therefore there is nothing for us to do on earth but to pray without ceasing against this archenemy. For if God did not support us, we would not be safe from him for a single hour.”

Try as he might, though, the devil is unable to snatch us from the hand of Christ. Jesus paid the price for us on the cross, and the devil knows it. To know that God’s is the kingdom is to know He created everything, including the devil. To know that God’s is the power is to know He has the power to rule over everything, and to put the devil into submission. To know that God’s is the glory is to know that through the grace of God in Christ, we have been saved from the evil one “forever and ever.” In Jesus’ Name we can confidently end this prayer and every prayer Amen.