Numbers 21:4-9; 1 Timothy 2:1-6; St John 16:23-30(31-33)
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
Prayer does not come naturally to fallen man. The flesh is curved inward on itself, concerned with self-gratification of its own desires, which are contrary to the desires of the Spirit. If left to ourselves our prayers would most often consist of demands for daily bread and all its accessories; not only for what is essential and needful, but also for what is wanted, though unnecessary for this body and life.
The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the full and free forgiveness of all of our sins, must bend us away from ourselves and fix our eyes upon Jesus; and peripherally, upon the needs of our neighbors. Prayer, by its very essence, places one in the posture of receiver. Invoking and petitioning One outside of oneself immediately indicates to the old Adam that he is not in control, that he does not matter most, that we are, even in our fallen state, responsible to God and owing to Him. It is our “duty to thank, praise, serve and obey Him” as the Small Catechism teaches.
Thus does prayer, true Christian prayer, begin not from the poverty and selfishness of our own hearts, but it originates within the Word of God and the richness of His promises. If prayer is to be understood as communication between God and man, it is the Lord who initiates. He speaks. We listen. This is the posture of prayer; indeed of the entire Christian life.
Hence the request of the disciples back in Luke 11: Lord, teach us to pray (11:1). Prayer, as the language of faith, grounded in the promises of God, begins the same way you and your children learned to speak: by listening the voice of your parents. You hear the promises and know the love of your Father in heaven, as the Word of His Son, Jesus Christ, is preached and proclaimed to you. Through this Word the Holy Spirit works to create and sustain saving faith; a faith that is active in love and good works, in confession and prayer. In such faith you speak back to the Father, by His Spirit, through His Son, based upon the very promises He speaks.
God’s first word regarding prayer is command. He commands you to pray. Recall the Second Commandment and its explanation.
You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
What does this mean?
We should fear and love God so that we do not curse, swear, use Satanic arts, lie or deceive by His name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.
The Lord your God sets up a protective hedge around the gift of His name. It is to be used and invoked rightly and appropriately. Not in the defense of false teaching or as license for immoral living. We ask God to protect us from this. Rather, His name is to be proclaimed among us as holy, right, and good. For faith comes by the hearing of His Word rightly preached and holy living naturally flows from such saving faith. We ask God to help us do this.
There are two reasons why the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father, is the Third Part of the Small Catechism after the Ten Commandments and Creed. Firstly, prayer is commanded and because we by nature do not fear, love, and trust in God above all things, the old Adam must be pummeled and beaten into submission to the Word of God. The command to pray pierces our flesh with the stinging reminder that we do not pray often or as we ought. Then the Gospel of the Apostles’ Creed enters and the Father, for the sake of His Son and His shed blood, forgives us our sins by work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, rightly ordering our wills and desires to conform to the Word and will of the Father, leads us in prayer, crying out Abba! Father! as only adopted children can do.
Secondly, the Our Father, and all prayer, follows the Trinitarian Christian confession, the Baptismal Creed, because the one received into fellowship with the Father by the death of the Son in the Holy Spirit, has entered into a spiritual battle against the devil, the world, and his flesh. Jesus says, In the world you will have tribulation. Prayer is how you engage in the battle, spiritual combat with the forces arrayed against Christ and His Church. St Paul outfits you for battle in the armor of God - belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shoes of the Gospel of peace, shield of faith, helmet of salvation - and finally, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication (Eph 6:17-18).
Prayer to the Father in Jesus’ name is exorcistic. God commands you to pray so that you may not be left unguarded and vulnerable to the attacks of the Evil One. Luther’s admonition regarding the necessity of receiving the Lord’s Supper may also be applied to prayer: if you don’t think you need to pray, just put your hand to your chest and see if your heart is still beating. If so, you have the old Adam haranguing you still; prayer helps mortify him. If that doesn’t motive you, look around you and see all manner of troubles and woes. You also have the devil hounding you with his lying and murdering day and night, never letting you have a moments’ peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.
This blessed and comforting statement of our crucified, risen, and ascended Lord Jesus leads us to the second aspect of prayer: not only does God command His children to pray, He promises to hear you and answer your prayers! He invites you to Himself in love, to ask as dear children as their dear Father, not in fear or intimidation, with a wavering mind, but in the full confidence that He delights in you and your prayers, and will answer according to His will and Word as He knows to be best for you in His fatherly, divine goodness and mercy.
The Father Himself loves you, dear children. You hear and see His heart of love toward you when He offers up His only Son upon the Cross in order to make you His again. Christ Jesus, your one Mediator and Atoning Sacrifice, has made peace between you and God, between His Father and your Father. By His vicarious suffering and death, by His resurrection from the dead, and by His glorious ascension to the right hand of the Father, He has entered once for all into the Holy Place with His own blood, which speaks and better word than the blood of Abel, and pleads for your pardon and forgiveness. Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, is also your Great High Priest, who intercedes on your behalf, lifting His wounded hands in supplication for you.
You heard the account of the grumbling Israelites in the Old Testament reading - a warning and lesson for us concerning our complacency of the gifts and benefits of the Lord, to be sure - but also a proclamation of the mercy and faithfulness of the Lord our God. For as the people of Israel lay dying on account of the serpents the Lord sent, they confessed their sin and begged Moses to intercede for them to the Lord. Moses receives the Lord’s word and fashions a serpent out of bronze and lifts it up on a pole before the eyes of the people. Attached to this odd crucifix is the promise of the Lord: whoever looks at the bronze serpent would live.
Jesus preaches the true meaning of this text to us in His discourse with Nick at night, saying, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life (Jn 3:14-15). Christ Jesus became the Serpent on our behalf; the grotesque and hideous form of our sin, the very thing that was causing us so much suffering and pain. He is lifted up from the earth in His death, drawing all men to Himself. And there He teaches you plaining about the Father, about His heart and His love, when He prays and intercedes for you as Moses did, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Lk 23:34).
Handing over His Spirit, receiving Him back again in His resurrection, then bestowing His Spirit upon His Apostles and Church in the upper room and Pentecost, Christ Jesus also teaches you so to pray. For not only has God commanded you to pray and promised to hear you, He even gives you the very words to say!
Chiefly and especially in the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father, which is both the beginning of prayer and the ending. It teaches you to pray and is the summation of any and all petitions. This prayer is a rich treasure and invaluable gift. It is the prayer of the baptized faithful who are given to address their dear Father in heaven as beloved children and heirs with their brother, His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. He who taught you to pray, prays for you and with you in the Our Father.
But it is not only here. When you pray based upon the Word and promises of the Lord in His living voice of Holy Scripture, thus are you given the words to say. I don’t mean mindless meditation or wordless impulses to connect to a higher power, but to verbally and orally to have the Scriptures upon your lips in prayer to the Father. The Psalms, dear ones, are a rich feast of both from God as His Word, and to God, as your prayer. By them, through His Spirit, He conforms your will to His, in holiness and love.
The Prayer of the Church and her collects, assist and guide you, as you heard in St Paul’s letter to St Timothy. Luther believed that the prayer of Christians kept the Turks at bay on the eastern German lands in order to allow for the Reformation. It is not an overstatement to say that the prayer of Christians keeps the world in motion until the Last Day, allowing for the proclamation of the Gospel unto the salvation of many.
Your daily life may be punctuated with prayer as you make use of the Prayer Offices of Matins or Vespers, Morning and Evening Prayer, and Compline. Replete with Scripture, they are the very embodiment of asking the Father in the name of Jesus that your joy may be full.
And do not overlook the simplicity and brilliance of the Small Catechism, dear friends. It is not only a “laymen’s Bible” and instruction for children, but a prayerbook which may be utilized by even the most mature Christian on a daily basis.
Finally, dear Christians, are of your petitions and prayers, the sum of the Our Father, the distillation of the entire Psalter, and the culmination of the old covenant is answered for you here in the New Testament in Christ’s Blood. This is the Father’s love for you: the Body and Blood of His Son, your Lord, risen from the grave and ascended into heaven, bestowed unto you in bread and wine, here at His Table. Take heart and lift them up unto the Lord, for He has delivered you from your distress and given you a city, His own Zion, in which to dwell. Thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man! For He satisfies the longing soul and the hungry soul He fills with good things.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
Prayer does not come naturally to fallen man. The flesh is curved inward on itself, concerned with self-gratification of its own desires, which are contrary to the desires of the Spirit. If left to ourselves our prayers would most often consist of demands for daily bread and all its accessories; not only for what is essential and needful, but also for what is wanted, though unnecessary for this body and life.
The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the full and free forgiveness of all of our sins, must bend us away from ourselves and fix our eyes upon Jesus; and peripherally, upon the needs of our neighbors. Prayer, by its very essence, places one in the posture of receiver. Invoking and petitioning One outside of oneself immediately indicates to the old Adam that he is not in control, that he does not matter most, that we are, even in our fallen state, responsible to God and owing to Him. It is our “duty to thank, praise, serve and obey Him” as the Small Catechism teaches.
Thus does prayer, true Christian prayer, begin not from the poverty and selfishness of our own hearts, but it originates within the Word of God and the richness of His promises. If prayer is to be understood as communication between God and man, it is the Lord who initiates. He speaks. We listen. This is the posture of prayer; indeed of the entire Christian life.
Hence the request of the disciples back in Luke 11: Lord, teach us to pray (11:1). Prayer, as the language of faith, grounded in the promises of God, begins the same way you and your children learned to speak: by listening the voice of your parents. You hear the promises and know the love of your Father in heaven, as the Word of His Son, Jesus Christ, is preached and proclaimed to you. Through this Word the Holy Spirit works to create and sustain saving faith; a faith that is active in love and good works, in confession and prayer. In such faith you speak back to the Father, by His Spirit, through His Son, based upon the very promises He speaks.
God’s first word regarding prayer is command. He commands you to pray. Recall the Second Commandment and its explanation.
You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
What does this mean?
We should fear and love God so that we do not curse, swear, use Satanic arts, lie or deceive by His name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.
The Lord your God sets up a protective hedge around the gift of His name. It is to be used and invoked rightly and appropriately. Not in the defense of false teaching or as license for immoral living. We ask God to protect us from this. Rather, His name is to be proclaimed among us as holy, right, and good. For faith comes by the hearing of His Word rightly preached and holy living naturally flows from such saving faith. We ask God to help us do this.
There are two reasons why the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father, is the Third Part of the Small Catechism after the Ten Commandments and Creed. Firstly, prayer is commanded and because we by nature do not fear, love, and trust in God above all things, the old Adam must be pummeled and beaten into submission to the Word of God. The command to pray pierces our flesh with the stinging reminder that we do not pray often or as we ought. Then the Gospel of the Apostles’ Creed enters and the Father, for the sake of His Son and His shed blood, forgives us our sins by work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, rightly ordering our wills and desires to conform to the Word and will of the Father, leads us in prayer, crying out Abba! Father! as only adopted children can do.
Secondly, the Our Father, and all prayer, follows the Trinitarian Christian confession, the Baptismal Creed, because the one received into fellowship with the Father by the death of the Son in the Holy Spirit, has entered into a spiritual battle against the devil, the world, and his flesh. Jesus says, In the world you will have tribulation. Prayer is how you engage in the battle, spiritual combat with the forces arrayed against Christ and His Church. St Paul outfits you for battle in the armor of God - belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shoes of the Gospel of peace, shield of faith, helmet of salvation - and finally, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication (Eph 6:17-18).
Prayer to the Father in Jesus’ name is exorcistic. God commands you to pray so that you may not be left unguarded and vulnerable to the attacks of the Evil One. Luther’s admonition regarding the necessity of receiving the Lord’s Supper may also be applied to prayer: if you don’t think you need to pray, just put your hand to your chest and see if your heart is still beating. If so, you have the old Adam haranguing you still; prayer helps mortify him. If that doesn’t motive you, look around you and see all manner of troubles and woes. You also have the devil hounding you with his lying and murdering day and night, never letting you have a moments’ peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.
This blessed and comforting statement of our crucified, risen, and ascended Lord Jesus leads us to the second aspect of prayer: not only does God command His children to pray, He promises to hear you and answer your prayers! He invites you to Himself in love, to ask as dear children as their dear Father, not in fear or intimidation, with a wavering mind, but in the full confidence that He delights in you and your prayers, and will answer according to His will and Word as He knows to be best for you in His fatherly, divine goodness and mercy.
The Father Himself loves you, dear children. You hear and see His heart of love toward you when He offers up His only Son upon the Cross in order to make you His again. Christ Jesus, your one Mediator and Atoning Sacrifice, has made peace between you and God, between His Father and your Father. By His vicarious suffering and death, by His resurrection from the dead, and by His glorious ascension to the right hand of the Father, He has entered once for all into the Holy Place with His own blood, which speaks and better word than the blood of Abel, and pleads for your pardon and forgiveness. Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, is also your Great High Priest, who intercedes on your behalf, lifting His wounded hands in supplication for you.
You heard the account of the grumbling Israelites in the Old Testament reading - a warning and lesson for us concerning our complacency of the gifts and benefits of the Lord, to be sure - but also a proclamation of the mercy and faithfulness of the Lord our God. For as the people of Israel lay dying on account of the serpents the Lord sent, they confessed their sin and begged Moses to intercede for them to the Lord. Moses receives the Lord’s word and fashions a serpent out of bronze and lifts it up on a pole before the eyes of the people. Attached to this odd crucifix is the promise of the Lord: whoever looks at the bronze serpent would live.
Jesus preaches the true meaning of this text to us in His discourse with Nick at night, saying, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life (Jn 3:14-15). Christ Jesus became the Serpent on our behalf; the grotesque and hideous form of our sin, the very thing that was causing us so much suffering and pain. He is lifted up from the earth in His death, drawing all men to Himself. And there He teaches you plaining about the Father, about His heart and His love, when He prays and intercedes for you as Moses did, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Lk 23:34).
Handing over His Spirit, receiving Him back again in His resurrection, then bestowing His Spirit upon His Apostles and Church in the upper room and Pentecost, Christ Jesus also teaches you so to pray. For not only has God commanded you to pray and promised to hear you, He even gives you the very words to say!
Chiefly and especially in the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father, which is both the beginning of prayer and the ending. It teaches you to pray and is the summation of any and all petitions. This prayer is a rich treasure and invaluable gift. It is the prayer of the baptized faithful who are given to address their dear Father in heaven as beloved children and heirs with their brother, His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. He who taught you to pray, prays for you and with you in the Our Father.
But it is not only here. When you pray based upon the Word and promises of the Lord in His living voice of Holy Scripture, thus are you given the words to say. I don’t mean mindless meditation or wordless impulses to connect to a higher power, but to verbally and orally to have the Scriptures upon your lips in prayer to the Father. The Psalms, dear ones, are a rich feast of both from God as His Word, and to God, as your prayer. By them, through His Spirit, He conforms your will to His, in holiness and love.
The Prayer of the Church and her collects, assist and guide you, as you heard in St Paul’s letter to St Timothy. Luther believed that the prayer of Christians kept the Turks at bay on the eastern German lands in order to allow for the Reformation. It is not an overstatement to say that the prayer of Christians keeps the world in motion until the Last Day, allowing for the proclamation of the Gospel unto the salvation of many.
Your daily life may be punctuated with prayer as you make use of the Prayer Offices of Matins or Vespers, Morning and Evening Prayer, and Compline. Replete with Scripture, they are the very embodiment of asking the Father in the name of Jesus that your joy may be full.
And do not overlook the simplicity and brilliance of the Small Catechism, dear friends. It is not only a “laymen’s Bible” and instruction for children, but a prayerbook which may be utilized by even the most mature Christian on a daily basis.
Finally, dear Christians, are of your petitions and prayers, the sum of the Our Father, the distillation of the entire Psalter, and the culmination of the old covenant is answered for you here in the New Testament in Christ’s Blood. This is the Father’s love for you: the Body and Blood of His Son, your Lord, risen from the grave and ascended into heaven, bestowed unto you in bread and wine, here at His Table. Take heart and lift them up unto the Lord, for He has delivered you from your distress and given you a city, His own Zion, in which to dwell. Thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man! For He satisfies the longing soul and the hungry soul He fills with good things.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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