John 16:23-33; James 1:22-27; Numbers
21:4-9
In the Name of the Father and of the
+ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
“In that day you will ask nothing of
Me,” says Jesus. Now, what on earth could He possibly mean? What Jesus means is
that, because of His death and resurrection in your place and for your sake, He
has, literally, given Himself to you. You are He, and He is you, flesh of His
flesh, bone of His bones. He is your holy Bridegroom, and you, the Church, are
His holy Bride. Therefore, all that belongs to Jesus belongs also to you, for
you are His body, and He is your head. Remember Jesus’ words that you heard in
last Sunday’s Gospel? “All that the Father has is Mine; therefore I said that
[the Holy Spirit] will take what is Mine and declare it to you.” There is
nothing that you could possibly ask the Father to give you that is not already
yours in Jesus Christ. Therefore, Jesus says, “You will ask nothing of Me,” but
“Whatever you ask of the Father in My Name, He will give it to you.”
“In My Name” is key, however. The Name
of Jesus includes everything that is godly and good, everything that is in
accordance with God’s Word, His Will, and His Commands, everything that your
God and Father would want you to have and readily gives you whether you pray to
Him or not. Are new cars, expensive college educations, and winning lottery
tickets in the Name of Jesus? Perhaps, but not likely. Are healings,
recoveries, and protections from evil in the Name of Jesus? Most definitely,
but they are not promised to be granted at all times, or in any particular time
frame. What “In My Name” most certainly is not is a magical incantation that you
simply tack on to the end of your prayers to make God answer them in the
affirmative and as you desire. That would be to make God like unto some divine
vending machine: Insert coin, pull lever, dispense gift. Thank you Jesus! No,
but the Name of Jesus is Jesus Himself, indeed, the entire Godhead of Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. As we heard from St. James last week, “Every good gift
and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights,
with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” Jesus Himself is,
first and foremost, that good and perfect gift of the Father, and whatever you
ask of the Father that is in Jesus’ Name, that is, that is in Jesus, He will
surely give you – in His time, in His way, according to His will and knowledge
of what is best and good.
Therefore, we must examine what true
prayer is and what it is not, for there is surely much confusion among
Christians today concerning prayer. First, prayer is not an option, but you are
commanded to pray. Thus, to pray is to obey. This is truly nothing more or less
than obedience to the Frist Commandment, “You shall have no other gods,” for,
when you pray, you pray to God, you acknowledge Him to be God and consequently
confess that you are not god. This, in itself, is good for you, for it is the
proper order of things, realignment between Creator and creature. Prayer is a
return to God, your Father, much as the prodigal son returned to His gracious,
loving, and forgiving father. God is there for you always, watching, waiting,
and calling for your return, no matter how long and how far you have strayed,
no matter how hatefully and wickedly you have treated Him, rebelled against
Him, and considered Him an enemy. Pray to Him because He is good, and He is
God, regardless of any expectation of whether He will grant you what you ask.
That simply is not the point. Pray. That is the point. Just pray. It’s good for
you, it glorifies God, and He has promised to hear and answer your prayers in
Jesus’ Name.
But, what should you pray for? Truly,
there is no better instruction and guidance in this matter than the very prayer
our Lord Jesus taught us to pray. We should pray that God’s Name would be hallowed, that it would be received,
confessed, and called upon as holy among us, His children, in our lives, words,
and deeds. We should pray that His kingdom
would come among us, that we would desire its coming and recognize and
confess its presence among us in how we worship Him and live our lives to His
glory in our God-given vocations in the world, but not of the world. We should
pray that His will be done, not our
own will, and that we would “think those things that are right” and “by [His]
merciful guiding accomplish them,” as we prayed in today’s Collect. We should
pray for Him to provide us daily bread,
that is, everything that we need and require for our bodies and our lives in
this world, and for our immortal souls. We should pray that He would enable and
inspire us to forgive others with His
forgiveness poured out upon us in Jesus Christ, that others would know the
love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness of God and glorify His Name with us. We
should pray that He would lead us not
unto temptation, but deliver us from the evil one; that is to say, that He
would protect us from the temptations and assaults of the devil, the world, and
our own fallen flesh and reason. Do you not see how all of these petitions are
necessarily and absolutely in Jesus’ Name?
In the Catechism’s explanation of the
Second Commandment concerning the proper use of the Name of the LORD, Luther
says that we should “call upon [God’s Name] in every trouble, pray, praise, and
give thanks.” As is typical for Luther, particularly in the Catechism, in a few
well-chosen words he communicates all that needs to be said: Pray for what you
need and to glorify the LORD. There is no confusing and distracting talk of
when to pray, or how to pray, what words to say when you pray, what posture you
should adopt when you pray, where you should pray, etc. Luther simply says to
pray. Likewise, St. Paul says that you are to pray without ceasing. Oh, the ink
that has been spilt and the spiritual damage that has been wrought in
misunderstanding and misinterpretation of these words! Why must every command
be defined with a limit? “How many times must I forgive my brother who has
sinned against me?” “When is it appropriate to not love?” “When is it
appropriate to not give or help or pray?” Our sin-corrupted reason and flesh
hates and despises and fears the LORD’s open-ended commands to pray, to love, to
forgive, and to give. “When?” We want ask. “Always!” The Lord replies, “There
is no limit!” “But, I can’t do that!” you protest. “Yes you can, and you must!”
the preacher answers. After all, you manage to breathe without ceasing, isn’t
that right? If you’re not breathing, you’re dead. For Christians, prayer should
be like breathing. You do not have to think to breathe because the atmosphere
exerts pressure on your lungs and essentially forces you to breathe. That is
why it is more difficult to hold your breath than it is to breathe. Similarly,
when we are born into the family of God, we enter into a spiritual atmosphere
where God's presence and grace exert pressure, or influence, on our lives.
Prayer is the normal response to that pressure. As believers, we have all
entered the divine atmosphere to breathe the air of prayer. Unfortunately,
many believers hold their “spiritual breath” for long periods, thinking brief
moments with God are sufficient to allow them to survive. But such restricting
of their spiritual intake is caused by sinful desires. The fact is that every
believer must be continually in the presence of God, constantly breathing in
His truths, to be fully functional. Thus, St. Paul exhorts you to pray without
ceasing. Breathe, pray, and live.
For, your life is a prayer to God. Thus,
St. James exhorts you to be “doers of the Word, and not hearers only.” As the
air you breathe nourishes your body, enabling you to live, so does prayer nourish,
enliven, and enable you to live both spiritually and physically. As the saying
goes, “You are what you eat,” so you are what you breathe, you are what you
pray, what you take into yourself, and what you give out in your lives, words,
and deeds. Therefore, bridle your tongue and keep yourself unstained from the
world and undefiled before God the Father. In this way you may have peace, the
Peace of God which passes all human understanding, in Jesus Christ our Lord. “I
have said these things to you,” says Jesus, “that in Me you may have peace. In
the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the
world.”
“Every good gift and every perfect gift
is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no
variation or shadow due to change.” Jesus is the good and perfect gift the
Father gives to you. And, in Jesus you have everything you could possibly ask
for that is in His Name: Righteousness and holiness, Sonship with the Father, a
share in Jesus’ reign over the kingdom of heaven and earth, victory over sin,
death, and the devil, everlasting life that can never die or fade. You do not
have to ask of Jesus, but whatever you ask in Jesus’ Name His Father will give
to you that your joy may be full, for the Father Himself loves you, because you
love Jesus and are bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh. If your flesh and
reason, the world, and the devil tempt you to doubt this, then know that this
is a chief reason that your Lord Jesus left you this Sacrament, that you may,
in a physical, visible, touchable, tasteable way, be reminded that you are in
communion with Him, that you are His body and He is your head. He gives you His
body to eat and His blood to drink for the forgiveness of your sins, the
strengthening of your faith, to equip you and send you forth bearing His
fruits, and to keep and to protect you from the assaults of the evil one. You
are in Jesus, and Jesus is in you. Therefore, your prayers in Jesus’ Name are
heard by the Father as Jesus’ own prayer. Rogate – ask, pray, in Jesus’ Name,
that you may have peace, and that your joy may be full.
In
the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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