And so we come to the conclusion of our series on the Lord's Prayer: "For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever, Amen." That is the doxology, the hymn of praise, the roll of drums, the clash of cymbals with which the church closes. Words which commit us, not to a great faith in God, but rather to faith in a great God. The kingdom, the power, the glory belong to God and God alone. Easter PROVES it!
You may be surprised to learn (or you may already know) that this phrase is not a part of the prayer that Jesus taught. The best of the ancient manuscripts do not record it. We first run into it in a collection of instructions for early Christians called The Didaché ("The Teachings") compiled about 100 years after Jesus' earthly ministry. Scholars suppose that it came to be …