Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Come? Or "draw us near"?

In the formal and material parallel to the “kingdom” request found in Rev. 22:20c—namely, the petition ἔρχου, κύριε Ἰησοῦ (erchou, kyrie Iēsou), which, like the “kingdom” request in the Disciples’ Prayer, consists of a form of ἐρχομαι (erchomai) in the imperative subject, and also is uttered in the context of an announcement of the dawning of a divine visitation. The function of the verb ἐρχομαι is not so much to express a sense of distance and separation as it is to invite closeness, and concomitantly to express the desire to be acceptable to the one invited to “come.” It is not the Lord (or, in the Disciples’ Prayer, the kingdom) that must be “turned” so that it “come”; rather, both prayers express the desire that the one praying be turned from disobedience and conformed to the reality, or the person, that is called upon to “come.” This suggests that the ἐλθέτω in the petition ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου expresses the wish to be made worthy of God’s kingdom and to be protected from all that would prevent this end.—The Disciples’ Prayer, page 112

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