The only prayer God doesn’t hate: Prayer in Jesus’ name

Sermon for Easter 5 – Rogate

James 1:22-27  +  John 16:23-30

You may be aware, our U.S. Congress has designated the first Thursday in May, which was this past Thursday, as a National Day of Prayer. But I’ll tell you something which will sound very strange to most people: a National Day of Prayer in our pluralistic society is as useless as a national day of Thanksgiving. In fact, worse than useless, it has become an abomination to God, a celebration of idolatry and falsehood, and I urge you never to come together with this or any nation to pray as a nation.

Let me read to you a portion of the White House’s proclamation for this past Thursday:

“Throughout our history, Americans of many religions and belief systems have turned to prayer for strength, hope, and guidance. Prayer has nourished countless souls and powered moral movements — including essential fights against racial injustice, child labor, and infringement on the rights of disabled Americans…Today, we remember and celebrate the role that the healing balm of prayer can play in our lives and in the life of our Nation.  As we continue to confront the crises and challenges of our time — from a deadly pandemic, to the loss of lives and livelihoods in its wake, to a reckoning on racial justice, to the existential threat of climate change — Americans of faith can call upon the power of prayer to provide hope and uplift us for the work ahead…On this National Day of Prayer, we unite with purpose and resolve, and recommit ourselves to the core freedoms that helped define and guide our Nation from its earliest days.  We celebrate our incredible good fortune that, as Americans, we can exercise our convictions freely — no matter our faith or beliefs.  Let us find in our prayers, however they are delivered, the determination to overcome adversity, rise above our differences, and come together as one Nation to meet this moment in history.”

I left out some of it, but nothing important. There’s a whole lot wrong with this proclamation, including some of the things for which the president would have us pray. But did you catch the most glaring omission? In the entire proclamation, including the parts I left out just now, you notice who’s not mentioned even once? God. God isn’t mentioned at all. God isn’t even implied. Instead, prayer itself is given all the credit here. The act of praying is what has the power to “nourish,” the power to give “strength, hope and guidance,” not any “God” to whom anyone might be praying. That alone is an abomination in God’s sight. But understand, even if “God” had been mentioned, it would still be an abomination, because it wouldn’t be the true God. It would be all the “gods” of the “many religions and belief systems” of America. The truth is, there is only one God, the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A prayer to any other god is a prayer to an idol and a demon. You think the true God is pleased with such prayers? You think the true God is pleased when Christians “come together as one nation” to pray to the false gods whom so many of our fellow citizens worship? Not at all. In fact, He hates it.

But there is a form of prayer and a coming together to pray that He loves, and that He commands, where He promises to hear and answer, and that’s the kind of prayer Jesus speaks of in today’s Gospel, the only prayer that is pleasing in God’s sight, the only prayer He doesn’t hate: The prayer in Jesus’ name.

When will Jesus’ disciples be able to pray this way? In that day, Jesus says. He has just spoken of the “little while” when they wouldn’t see Him, and again the “little while” after which they would see Him and rejoice, and even the “little while” until He would go to the Father, when He would ascend into heaven. So “in that day” refers to the time after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the time in which the apostles would spend the rest of their lives, the time in which we still live.

In that day, Jesus says, you won’t ask Him anything. Ask, as in, ask Him any questions. First, because He won’t be here with us as He was with His disciples prior to His ascension. You can’t go up to Jesus and ask Him things. But that’s OK, first, because as we heard last week, Jesus would be sending His Holy Spirit back down to His Church after His ascension, who will dwell with the Church forever and guide us into all truth.

Second, it’s OK that we won’t ask Jesus things, because there is no need. As His disciples said at the end of today’s Gospel, Now we know that you know all things and that you do not need anyone to ask you. Jesus doesn’t need you to ask Him questions, because He knows our questions and our needs before we ask.

Besides, in that day, during this time after Jesus’ ascension, you will be able to go directly to God the Father in prayer and ask Him directly for whatever you need. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

What does it mean to ask for something in Jesus’ name?

First, what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean you have to ask Jesus for things so that He can take your requests before God the Father. No, Jesus says. In that day you will ask in my name. I am not telling you that I will ask the Father for you. This is why Jesus teaches us to pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven.” The Romanist notion that you should go to Mary or to any number of saints, so that they can take your requests before God is pure deception. According to Jesus, His people have full access to God the Father without the need for anyone, even Jesus Himself, to stand between you and God.

What does it mean, then, to pray, to ask the Father for things in Jesus’ name?

First, it means to come before God with your requests only through faith in Christ Jesus. Paul says to the Romans, Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. Or again in Ephesians 3, In Christ we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him. This is the meaning of the tearing of the curtain in the temple of Jerusalem when Jesus died on the cross, that now, through faith in Christ crucified, we have the forgiveness of our sins, which allows us to have direct access to God.

Now, faith in Christ implies also an acknowledging of our own sinfulness and unworthiness to stand before God. It means that we don’t claim to be worthy when we pray. “Lord, You know I’ve done many good things for You. Give me what I ask! You owe it to me!” It means that we don’t make bargains with God when we pray to Him. “Lord, if You do this for me, then I’ll do something special for You!” No, praying in the name of Jesus means asking for things with the full admission that you don’t deserve them and can’t deserve them. All you deserve is God’s wrath and punishment. But you have a Savior, Jesus Christ, who suffered for your sins, who earned God’s favor for you, and who has reconciled you to God through faith in Him. In other words, praying in Jesus’ name means daring to pray to God the Father only because you know you stand forgiven before Him of all your sins through faith in Christ Jesus.

This, by the way, is what also made the prayers of God’s Old Testament people acceptable in His sight. Because they prayed to Him as the God who had promised to send the Christ to make atonement for their sins. In that sense, Old Testament believers also prayed “in Jesus’ name.”

Secondly, praying in Jesus’ name means to come before God by the invitation, command, and promise of Jesus, the beloved Son of God. We can step before our heavenly Father in prayer, confident that He will hear us and help us, because we have been given this privilege and invitation by Jesus Himself. And He has also told us what to pray for—for all the things included in the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. For our Father’s name to be hallowed or made holy among us, in our doctrine and in our lives. For our Father’s kingdom to come, to us and others. For our Father’s will to be done among us and for every other will to be put down. For our Father to give us our daily bread, everything we need for today. For our Father to forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. For our Father not to lead us into temptation, but to deliver us from every evil. To pray at Jesus’ invitation, according to the pattern Jesus taught us, is to pray in Jesus’ name.

That pattern includes, by the way, the whole pattern of prayer taught throughout the Bible, in the Psalms, in the prophets, and in the rest of the New Testament, so take note of that in all your reading of Scripture. Take note in what you read of how and for whom it teaches you to pray. Pray for one another, James writes. So today, on Mother’s Day, we’ll say a special prayer for mothers. Paul writes to Timothy, Let prayers be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. So, although we won’t “come together as a nation” to pray, we Christians will pray for our nation and for our leaders, as we always do. We’ll pray for all men in their various needs, for unbelievers, for Christians who are still our brothers and sisters in Christ, although they may still unknowingly be deceived by some false doctrine, and we’ll also pray for one another and for all the Christians who confess the faith together with us as one.

Finally, to pray in Jesus’ name is to expect your dear Father to hear and help you, because He loves you for loving Jesus. As the Lord says in the Gospel, the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from God. The word here for “love” is not the “God so loved the world” love, the love that covers everyone equally and seeks the best of the other, regardless of who he is or what she’s done. Rather, it’s the love of friendship, the love of liking something about someone else, the love of having something in common. In this case, the thing that we Christians and God the Father have in common is a love for Jesus, that we love Him for who He is and for what He has done. God the Father thinks very highly of people for that, even though it was God the Father Himself who drew us to Jesus through His Word and Spirit in the first place, who brought us to know and to love Jesus. And here Jesus is, telling us that the Father loves us because of that very love for which the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are responsible. To pray in Jesus’ name is to love Jesus and to know that we’re loved and that our prayers are favorable to God the Father for it.

So, you see, Christians don’t need a proclamation from congress or from a president to turn us to prayer. Nor do we dare pretend that all those prayers that are not offered in Jesus’ name are anything but hateful to God. We have been given a great gift, to know the true God and to be invited to bring our prayers and requests before Him. Use that gift, and trust in the Giver always to be eager to hear and to help, in Jesus’ name. Amen.