When Jesus Prays
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Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions Conversion
50 Out of His immense goodness and mercy, God provides for the public preaching of His divine eternal Law and His wonderful plan for our redemption, that of the holy, only saving Gospel of His eternal Son, our only Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. By this preaching He gathers an eternal Church for Himself from the human race and works in people’s hearts true repentance, knowledge of sins, and true faith in God’s Son, Jesus Christ. By this means, and in no other way (i.e., through His holy Word, when people hear it preached or read it, and through the holy Sacraments when they are used according to His Word), God desires to call people to eternal salvation. He desires to draw them to Himself and convert, regenerate, and sanctify them.
- Formula: SD Article II, Paragraph 50
1. Blessed Lord, You have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning. Grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and take them to heart that, by the patience and comfort of Your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life. … through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Blessed Lord, You have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning. Grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and take them to heart that, by the patience and comfort of Your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life. … through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Jesus prays, and we pray. Aside from the fact that his prayers are recorded in Scripture, is there a significant difference between His prayer and ours in God’s eyes, and what does that mean for us?
The passage in today’s Gospel reading, , is taken from what is called the “High-Priestly prayer of Christ” before His being offered up as the sacrifice for our sins. It begins at verse one, and continues until the end of the chapter in verse 26. In it, Jesus prays, concerning Himself, that the Father would glorify Him. He prays this, not for His own benefit, but in order that He can also glorify His Father, to the end that He can give eternal life to all whom the Father has given to Him. In this prayer, then, Jesus is not seeking His own comfort, deliverance from suffering, or earthly glory or satisfaction, but the fulfillment of the Divine Purpose.
In verse 6, Jesus shifts His prayer to His disciples, “the people whom [the Father has given to Him] out of the world.” He is very specific, saying in v. 9, “I am not praying for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are yours.” Then in verse 20, Jesus extends His concerns to “those who will believe in Me through their word,” that is, to us. He prays that we would be one, “even as We are one” (v.22).
The most important question regarding prayer that most people ask me pertains to its efficacy - its effectiveness, power, or successfulness. People want to know how to “pray well,” meaning, for the most part, how to pray in such a way that God responds, but even better, responds with a “Yes” rather than a “No."
We usually tell people to look to Jesus as the example of how to live a life that pleases God, because He lived exactly that kind of life. When it comes to prayer, therefore, it would seem meet, right, and salutary to follow the same pattern. It would also be a fair question to ask, after looking at this prayer, whether God answers this prayer, and, whether Jesus was answered affirmatively - whether God gave Jesus what He asked of Him.
The final creedal statement of the Nicene Creed, the one we confess before Holy Communion, says, “And I believe in one holy Christian and apostolic Church, I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.”
Paul Timothy McCain, ed., Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2005), 16.
Paul Timothy McCain, ed., Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2005), 16.
In this statement, we say that, regardless of appearances, we confess that we know by faith that the Church of Jesus Christ is sanctified by the Holy Spirit, that it is rooted in the Apostle’s teaching and the fellowship (), and that it is ONE. While the world questions our unity based upon the perceived diversity of congregations, and the Anti-Christ claims that our refusal to submit to His rule makes us schismatic, we declare every service in which we celebrate our unity in Christ, that there is only one Body of Christ, one Bride of Christ, one holy Christian and apostolic Church where the Gospel is purely preached, the sacraments are properly administered, and the people of God are enabled to grow to maturity in the Faith.
While acknowledging that all Christians don’t agree on all things, don’t operate the same way on Sundays, and don’t always treat one another like we are “members of one Body,” we are not discouraged by this. With the Apostle Paul, we say,
So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.
Regarding those with whom we share altar and pulpit fellowship, our partner churches, we please God by our recognition of our shared Confessional history. We worship together and support one another in our missional endeavors. We pray for one another’s ministries. This is “meet, right, and salutary.”
What of the others? What should we do with regard to those who believe in Jesus Christ, with whom we share “baptismal fellowship,” but have strong differences in teaching and worship? Is it just an issue of “Style versus Substance?” The early church father St. Prosper of Aquitaine, writing about the authority of the past Bishops of Rome, made a statement from which the historic phrase, Lex orandi, lex credendi (Latin loosely translated as "the law of what is to be prayed [is] the law of what is to be believed") is derived. Our liturgy is our corporate worship that we share and pass on. It is rooted in “the Faith once for all delivered to the saints” (), because it is declares what God has spoken and promised.
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
The Lord Jesus asked the Father that we believers would be one. God the Father always hears God the Son because the Son always does what the Father wants. The things that appear to stand in the way of that “yes,” are things that God is able to “do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power that is at work within us. Our prayers for unity are joined to this prayer, and our faith teaches us “that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phi 1:6).
This is why we can work together today, although we don’t agree on all things. This is why we can encourage one another in the faith, although we don’t see that we are on the same page in all things. This is also why I cannot surrender what I believe, teach, and confess on the altar of surface fellowship. I cannot say that it doesn’t matter whether we are all Confessional Evangelical or not. I cannot pretend that there is no connection between what we believe and what we do.
The Gospel must be proclaimed in all the world, including here in Gary. The Gospel must be preached purely so that men, women and children can hear that Christ is for them. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing from the Word of Christ. The good works that follow the reception of the Gospel show the fruit of that proclamation, and as God’s dear children, we are to bear much fruit. Our homes, our vocations, our relationships, all should show the evidence of the fruit of the Spirit, for it is the Spirit who works in us both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
Jesus prayed for us, beloved. He prayed that we would be one, and that we would bear fruit that would abound. That is His prayer, that is the Father’s will, and that is our blessed hope,
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Paul Timothy McCain, ed., Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2005), 16.
Paul Timothy McCain, ed., Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2005), 16.