John 16:23-33
Easter 6
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠
You see on your bulletins that this day in the church year is called “Rogate,” which is from the Latin root “to ask” or “to pray.” The days of this week leading up to Ascension day would historically be observed as special days of prayer, asking God to bless the fields and the seeds planted in them, that the world might be provided with food in the coming harvest. This would certainly be a good thing for us to practice this week in our devotions, especially when the world is reverting back to practices with semi-pagan themes to them, like Earth Day. Rogate days of prayer emphasize our dependence not on mother earth but on Father God, the Creator and Sustainer of Life, and our stewardship of a world that belongs to Him, not to us. Just the act of prayer itself reminds us to trust and rely on the Lord for all things.
Jesus declares, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you.” So what does that mean, to pray “in Jesus’ name?” The epistle of James helps us to answer that question. First of all James tells us what Christian prayer is not. He says, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?” (James 4:3-4) So prayer in Jesus’ name is never a means to fulfilling worldly dreams and desires. To pray in Jesus’ name, rather, is to pray as Jesus would pray, fervently, faithfully, and as He did in the Garden of Gethsemane, always submitting to the Father’s will. We must confess that too often we use prayer to try to get God to follow our will rather than asking Him to conform us to His will, to get Him to make our plans come to fulfillment rather than seeking our place in the fulfillment of His plans.
Jesus teaches us rightly to pray in the Lord’s Prayer. I’m sure you’ve noticed that the first three petitions of the Our Father are focused on God. “Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.” Only then do we get to the petition, “Give us this day our daily bread.” First pray for those weightier spiritual matters, that God’s name would be hallowed among us by what we teach and how we live, that His kingdom of grace in Christ would flourish among us and throughout the world, that His will would be done in hindering every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature. Then you will be rightly prepared to pray for your daily bread, your bodily needs and material desires.
Secondly, James has this to say about Christian prayer, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” (James 1:4-8) To pray in Jesus’ name means to pray with faith in Christ, believing in Him as your Redeemer, confident that He will surely hear and answer you according to His good and gracious will.
This is what distinguishes Christian prayer from all other prayer. We need to realize that not all prayer is Christian or God-pleasing. For today’s Epistle shows us there is only one way truly to come to the Father, and that is through Jesus, by faith in Him. Every other way center’s on our works and leads to uncertainty. Every other way ultimately runs into a brick wall. For “there is only one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all.” Jesus is the only way to gain access to the Father. For only He was able to break through the sin-barrier that we had created which cut us off from God. By coming down from heaven and taking on our flesh, Jesus reunited God and man in Himself. And by His sin-destroying death and resurrection and ascension He has now cleared the way for us to come to the throne of heaven.
To pray in Jesus’ name, then, means to pray with faith in Him as the only Mediator, the only way back to the Father. And ultimately, to pray in Jesus’ name means that you pray as if you were Jesus Himself! You may not always think of this, but when you call God “Father,” you are praying as though you were the Son of God. For as you know, Jesus is the only Son of the Father. So the only way you can legitimately call God “Father,” then, is to have Christ’s permission to pray in His stead. That privilege is granted to you by your Baptism in Jesus’ name.
There is an old custom which we still use at baptism, where the pastor lays his hands upon the child’s head while praying the Lord’s Prayer. That is meant as a visual declaration that the gift of calling God “Father” is being given to the one baptized. Now he, too, is given permission to pray the Lord’s Prayer. In the ancient church adult converts weren’t taught the Lord’s Prayer until they were baptized. Only then did they have the right to say it. In Jesus alone you are counted as children of God with all the benefits that entails. God hears you just like He hears Jesus. The name of Jesus opens heaven to you. It unlocks the door to the Father’s heart.
So when you pray as a Christian, you are never praying alone, even if you’re by yourself. For you are always praying in and with Christ. And if you are praying with Christ, you are also praying together with everyone else who is baptized into Him. That’s why we pray “Our Father who art in heaven . . .” even when we are praying in private. Jesus includes Himself in that “Our.”
Indeed, Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father always to intercede and pray for us to the Father and bring Him our petitions and thanksgivings. Jesus is our go-between with God the Father, the One who prays our prayers to Him and who thereby gives us the certainty that our prayers are heard. Romans 8 even teaches us that the Spirit of Christ intercedes for us with groans that are too deep for words. Sometimes when we are not able to formulate the words as we like, when we come before God with nothing more than our deepest needs and yearnings, the Spirit fills in the blanks with unutterable divine language.
So when we talk about the power of prayer, let’s be sure we understand it correctly. Prayer is not powerful. Prayer is weakness. In prayer, we declare our need for God and ask Him to work because we can’t. But God is powerful, and He regards the prayers of His children. The power of prayer is not in the prayer itself or in the one praying, but in the God who loves us enough to answer our petitions. Prayer changes things because God hears. Through the weakness of prayer, we learn to rely on Him and take refuge in Him and trust in His good and gracious will.
Prayer begins and ends with God. He speaks His words of life into you; and then by those very words He gives you the words to pray and speak back to Him in faith, like a child who learns to speak by first listening to his parents. Through the Lord’s coming to you, He enables you to make requests based on what He has spoken and promised, to praise and thank Him for His goodness and mercy toward you. This is why Jesus comes forth from the Father into the world and then returns to the Father, so that He might reach out to draw you into Himself and His divine life.
And finally, to keep you steadfast in that divine faith and life, Jesus gives you a great promise and the strongest of encouragements to pray. In the Gospel He says, “Ask, and you will receive.” Come in my name as dear children of a dear Father in heaven. James reminds us that very often we do not have because we simply do not ask. We are stubborn and strong-willed children. We are always looking to our own solutions before we ever give a thought to petitioning the Lord of our life. And so Jesus gently and lovingly invites us, “Ask, and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened.”
Jesus says elsewhere in Luke 11,“What man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things and the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
So ask. In this world you will have tribulation, it is true. But see that as an invitation to prayer. And then be of good cheer. For Christ has overcome the world by His holy cross. Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full. For by asking you are believing in Christ. And by believing in Christ you are receiving Him who is joy in the flesh, who cheers your heart even now with His life-giving body and blood. In Him your joy is truly full.
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠