We come now to the last petition in the Lord’s model prayer.  Having acknowledged and sought relationship with God, recognizing his majesty and bowing in worship; having yielded to his will, realized his provision and desired to demonstrate the “family trait” of forgiveness, we are directed to make a last request of the Father.  Like the prior request of apparent conditional forgiveness, this petition raises some interesting questions.  It is often considered the most difficult part of the prayer to understand.  Jesus directs us to pray that the Father “lead us not into temptation.”  James, however, makes it clear that “When someone is tempted, he shouldn’t say that God is tempting him. God can’t be tempted by evil, and God doesn’t tempt anyone.” (James 1:13)

While we accept the promise that God is able to make all things work together for our good (Romans 8:28), we do not seek out tragedy in our lives to give God an opportunity to demonstrate his power.  God’s will for us is not that we should suffer, but that we should experience peace, joy and power, even as we endure the suffering that is common to this corrupted world.  We seek neither trial nor temptation, yet know both are inevitable occurrences in our lives.  Even Jesus, perfect in his obedience and fully aware that “for this very reason I came to this hour” (John 12:27), prays in the garden, “Let this cup pass from me.”  (Matthew 26:39)  He does not shrink from his impending humiliation and torture, but he does not embrace it either.

Paul recognizes that God’s grace is most abundant and made most evident when we are deepest in sin.  He asks “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” and answers, “May it never be!”  (Romans 6:1, 2)  While it is true that our salvation demonstrates both the enormity of God’s love and the immensity of his power, he does not need us to seek ever greater sinfulness to further embellish the glory of his grace.

What then is the role of trouble in our lives, and of the temptations that are so often either the cause or the effect of that trouble?  James makes clear that our encounters with trials are reason for joy because the natural consequence of trouble endured well is a powerful and patient faith; a mature and faithful confidence in God’s ability to provide.  Should not the prayer of the faithful then be, “Lead me into temptation – so that I may joyfully persevere”?  Yet, no such prayer is found in Scripture.

Perhaps the way to understand this portion of the prayer is visit more closely the role of temptation in our lives.  A beginning place is to recognize that temptation is unavoidable.  We do not need to be led into temptation.  We already know where temptation lives and the neighborhood is familiar indeed.  The carnal, sinful self that Paul describes in Romans is a constant companion. The temptations of pride and willfulness, of envy and greed, of lust and impurity, of selfishness are common to our days.  A petition that the Father not lead us into temptation surely should not be read as if we dwelt in some pristine, temptation free enclave and hoped that God would not lead us out to a distant land where temptations could be found.

The leadership that is envisioned in the prayer is not the kind of leadership one would expect from a museum guide (“keep walking, keep walking…”), but more the kind of leadership one would receive from a good shepherd, or a loving father.  We live in the midst of opportunities to sin.  There are open wells and swift streams and thorny patches all around.  “Father, by your leadership,” we are instructed to pray, “keep us from falling into these places.  Like a good shepherd, catch hold of us and pull us back to you when we about to embrace the evil.”  Temptation is tempting because it appeals to us.  It promises to meet our need.  It masquerades as satisfying, beautiful and able to make us wise.  It cries out to us, “God’s way is a lie.  Choose me.  Choose yourself over Him.”  Temptation, the siren call of sin, shouts and whispers from every door.  Jesus instructs us to pray that the Father would lead us; that we would not turn aside or go astray and fall into the trap temptation has laid for us.  “Watch and pray,” Jesus tells his disciples on the night of his betrayal, “that you might not fall into temptation.”  He knew that they were about to be confronted with an attractive, even compelling, opportunity to forsake and deny him.  They were going to be brought unto temptation.  The danger was that they would go into it.

This understanding of the word into is not limited to the Lord’s Prayer.  The New Testament speaks of entering into life, or into punishment, or into the kingdom.  These are not so much places we can go as they are enduring conditions in which we live.  Our prayer is less about the outward position in which we find ourselves, with temptation calling sweetly to us, and more about the inward condition, the state of heart and will which knows, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.” (Isaiah 26:3)

This understanding of into also allows for harmony with the second half of the petition – “and deliver us from evil.”  The words deliver us mean literally to “pull us away” and Jesus says from evil (or the evil one), not out of.  Don’t let us enter in and pull us back from the brink.

The petition becomes one of consistency and balance.  “Father, like a good shepherd, lead us – not allowing us to be ‘dragged away and enticed’ by ‘our own evil desires’ (James 1:14), not allowing us to plunge into our temptations – and when we prove ourselves weak and frail, when that roaring lion seeks to devour us (1 Peter 5:8), then draw us back to yourself, turn our hearts again to you.”

We should note that the prayer does not merely request that we be turned away from evil.  We pray that we will be delivered, pulled back.  The idea of delivery carries with it the need for someone who receives our delivered soul.  We are not just turned away from the temptation that would pull us into sin, we are pulled back into the presence and care of our Father.  The image is not one of father who blocks the path and pushes aside his child who approaches the cliff.  It is a picture of a father who seizes the child on the edge, pulls her to himself and holds her in the safety of his embrace.  Once again the prayer returns to the relationship God seeks with us.

Our Father

in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead in not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Matthew  6:9-13

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen