The Tenth Sunday of Pentecost
Praying in a Certain Way Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. In today’s Gospel, “*Jesus was praying in a certain place*.” The disciples of Jesus saw Him praying and they wanted to imitate their Lord’s prayers with their own prayers. “*Lord, teach us to pray*!” Jesus responded by opening His sinless heart and His perfect mind to them, giving them an inestimable gift in the form of a prayer; the same prayer that He Himself prayed. These are golden Words by which we may now pray: “*Above all else Father, let Your name be holy*.” Dear Christian friends, The Scriptures teach us to believe that the situation we are in, on account of our sin, is far more serious than we could ever know (Psalm 19:13). The corruption of our nature runs so deep that the “damage cannot be fully described. It cannot be understood by human reason, but only from God’s Word” (Epitome I.8). 1. You and I tend to think that sin merely consists of this bad thing we did or that impolite word we said. Because we tend to think too little of sin, we also tend to think too little of God’s grace, and that totally undermines the need we feel for the mercy God pours out for us in worship. If we could truly wrap our heads around the depth of our sin and our need for Christ’s forgiveness, we would never want to leave this place. This place is where God’s forgiveness in Christ oozes out of nearly every word of the liturgy. (If we truly understood the seriousness of our need, then the question of communion frequency would not even be a question and we would never think that worship needs to be made more fun. We might even say that all such debates finally boil down to misunderstanding or misbelieving the seriousness of sin.) 2. Because sin goes far beyond what we are able to think or imagine on our own, we also face great limitations in the prayers we pray. God’s apostle Paul said this very thing in Romans 8:26, “*We do not know what to pray as we ought*.” With these Words, Paul is not saying we are totally unable to pray. Paul is simply observing that we Christians remain too limited—too unaware of our serious situation—to be able to pray as fully and as completely as we ought to pray. How does God help us in our limitation and need? Two ways: · God has given us His Holy Spirit, whom He poured out richly upon us in His miracle of Baptism. God has declared that the Spirit He gave us in Baptism “*helps us in our weakness*” (Romans 8:26). How? More from Romans 8: For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for Words. And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God (Romans 8:26-27). · In addition our Baptism in the Holy Spirit, our God has also given us the Lord’s Prayer. As you heard in today’s Gospel, this prayer comes straight from the lips of Jesus and it has been placed upon our lips so that we may pray in the manner that our Lord prayed. “*When you pray*,” says the Lord, “*Say this:* *Father, hallowed be Your name*. *Your kingdom come. Etc*.” This prayer was not given to us for our mindless repetition, and that is something for which we are all guilty. This prayer was given to us for the faithful exercise of our faith, which itself is a gift from God. By means of this prayer, our Lord Jesus: 1. Lifts up our eyes, so that we may see far beyond the limited horizon of our personal perceptions. In this prayer, Jesus makes us aware of needs we could never otherwise know that we need. We all feel the need for daily bread, to be sure! The lion’s share of our prayers usually center around bodily needs. But who of us would ever know to pray for God’s kingdom to come, unless our God had said, “*Pray that the kingdom come*.” How could we even think to ask that God’s name be kept holy among us, had Jesus not said, “*Pray to the Father, that His name be hallowed*.” Left to sinful ourselves, why would we even wish or desire to avoid temptation? We have only one reason to pray that God would keep us from temptation: Jesus teaches us to pray, “*lead us not into temptation*.” The Lord’s Prayer therefore serves us as a spiritual telescope, if you will, or a set of divine binoculars. Through this prayer, our God mercifully allows us to see far beyond the limitations of our persistently sinful condition, and the Lord’s Prayer teaches us to desire and to pray for things we would not otherwise need or desire. But that is not all! 2. Gives us a language and a song that our heavenly Father dearly loves to hear from the mouths of His saints. Suppose one of you young men wanted to sing a song to that lovely girl over there, in order to gain her attention. If you know that the girl loves the music Andrea Bocelli, would you sing her a Willie Nelson song? Of course not! You would wish to speak the language that you know the girl loves to hear, in order that she might possibly even love to hear from you. In the same way, the Lord’s Prayer is the language our God loves to hear. These Words were given to us by our God, who said in today’s Gospel, “*Pray thus; say this*.” God does not love these Words because of their repetition; God loves these Words because these Words are the very form and substance of the faith He has given us. When we speak in faith the language our God loves to hear, we may know all the more that He indeed is listening! But that is not all! 3. Gives us unity of faith. The blood of Jesus, shed from His cross, forgives each of us every sin—including those we are not even aware that we have. The blood of Jesus also knits us together into one body, one communion, and one faith in one Lord. The Lord’s Prayer is the language of our one, common faith. The Lord’s Prayer is something even the smallest of children can soon join all the saints in praying, if only their parents will allow it. The Lord’s Prayer verbally expresses the one heart, the one mind, and the one body that all the baptized of Christ now have with Jesus their Lord. But that is not all! 4. Everything for which we pray in the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus declares an oath in today’s Gospel, I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Our Lord Jesus earnestly wants us to feel certain that we shall indeed receive what we ask. Therefore, Jesus has given us all these things, even before we pray! “*When you pray,*” says the Lord, “*say…*” · “*Father, hallowed be Your name*.” Yet Jesus has already hallowed God’s name for us, living in perfect obedience to God—and then He gave the holiness of God’s name to us in Baptism. In Baptism, you were clothed with the complete righteousness of Christ. · “*Your kingdom come*.” And Jesus has already delivered His kingdom to you, making you citizens and saints with all the company of heaven. · “*Give us each day our daily bread*.” And this is a steady reality for each of us, poured out generously upon us from the hand of our God. · “*Forgive us our sins*.” Yet each and every one of your sins is fully and completely forgiven, long before you pray! Even the serious condition of our sin was fully treated and solved long before each of our births. As you know from the familiar Words of Jesus, spoken from His cross, “*It is finished. Paid in full*” (John 19:30). · “*And lead us not into temptation*.” Even that prayer our Lord answers for us long before we pray! In order to guard us well against all temptation and evil, our Lord has provided us many and frequent helps in the singing of the liturgy, the preaching of the Word and the celebration of the Holy Communion. To be sure, the situation of our sin is bad—far worse than we can even know or believe apart from the Word of God. The situation of our sin shall remain bad for us until that day we enter the glory of the Lord and fully realize our share in His resurrection from the dead. Until that time, Jesus has given us the simple beauty and the immense power of the Lord’s Prayer. This prayer is major part of our defense in the faith. This prayer is a huge part of our faithful love toward neighbor. This prayer is the very voice of Jesus upon our lips, in order that we ourselves may hear and believe.
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