Prayer that Spans the World: Sermons on the Lord's Prayer

In these sermons delivered in the shattered city of Stuttgart during the last days of the Second World War, Thielicke examines the Lord's Prayer phrase by phrase, drawing from it both immediate comfort and inspiration for the future. Dr Thielicke likens the Lord's Prayer to the rainbow colours of the spectrum. The whole light of life is captured in this rainbow of seven petitions. "The Lord's Prayers can be spoken at the cradle or the grave," he says, "It can rise from the altars of great cathedrals and from the dark hovels of those who 'eat their bread with tears'. It can be prayed at weddings and on the gallows. All seven colours of our life are contained in it, and so never is there a time when we are left alone." As he expounded the inner meaning of the familiar phrases, he enabled his despairing congregation to share in this promise of hope - to see the world in a new way, though prayer. His words still have the same power today for those who are prepared to listen.