Rogate – Sunday 5 May A✠D 2024
✠ Psalmody: Isaiah 48:20b;Psalm 66:1–2a, 17, 19–20;St. John 16:28
✠ Lection: Numbers 21:4–9;James 1:22–27;St. John 16:23b–30
Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Most people, especially those with even the slightest amount of Christian background and learning, make a monumental assumption when we pray by expecting that God will actually hear our prayers, that He will turn His ear to listen to us. What right do we have to the ear of God? Have you ever considered that? Almighty God, little ole, rebellious, sinful us. Our natural, self-important disposition, that is, the default mindset of the fallen nature, is that of course God will hear our prayers. Have we not conditioned ourselves to guaranteed and overwhelmingly rapid responses in our way of life and expect God to delivers the same? Everything from text messages to food to air conditioning to next day delivery to our doorstep all have us ready, and expecting, for our desires and requests to be heard and rather quickly responded to. So, what right do we have to assume the pure and holy, holy, holy Maker of heaven and earth, the One Who knows every magnificent star by name and by the power of His word keeps them all in place, what right do we have to even speak His Name? To talk directly to Him? To expect Him to hear, much less listen and respond to us who daily offend Him by our sins, and then expect Him to answer us favorably? If we continue to assume the privilege from our point of view, then we shall never understand and appreciate what we have. If we consider prayer from God’s perspective, as in what He has done so that He may gladly, intently, even ferociously hear our prayers, then prayers worth begins to shine and grow in the heart of faith nearer to the value that it posseses. Let us neither neglect the gift of prayer nor know and make use of the privilege while forgetting how it came to be so magnificent and blessed for us to be able to ask the Father directly.
“Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” Immediately before the Lord Jesus Christ spoke these words, He said that this unfathomable access to God would be restored to us in that day. In which day? In the Day for which His Father sent Him, the Day that would bring about restoration, a full reconciliation between God and man. In that Day, the Day of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection three days later, the Son reconciled the Father in heaven with His estranged children, with His very enemies; sinful and rebellious man. In that Day, His work was completed and stands completed today. All that stood in between God and man had been remedied and Christ’s hour has won our reconciliation and is now the Reason that with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their dear Father. We no longer pray as enemies.
Yet, the distance to travel from where we were to where we stand before Him as restored children is not a spring day stroll around the block or a quick hop over to the store. It’s not a distance covered by our own sense of worthiness or entitlement, but one spanned solely by grace from His side. We stand on our own neither in a position of righteousness nor even in one of neutrality before God. Consider the precious, very personal space that you consider to be your own home and how you guard it from enemies. Those enemies you make it a point to keep locked out night and day away from the things and the people that you hold dear within the walls of your home. It is your refuge, a place of protection not only from winter snowstorms, but from summer heat, from drenching rains, and from those who seek to harm or steal, a gift of home from God. Every crumb in life is from God, so we pray that we come to realize this and to receive it all with thanksgiving to the One Who graciously gives. The home is a special place that you have set apart. So, how many of your enemies do you allow to freely come in around the clock to ask something of you?
Consider then the dwelling place of the Most High. In Jerusalem used to be the earthly home of God, a temple by which His grace was bestowed upon His people in sacrifice and divine service, a place fashioned after the Lord’s heavenly abode. No one could enter into the heart of the temple as an enemy of the One Whose glory dwelt in the Most Holy Place without that person encountering certain death. This most definitely means then that no one could assume a right to walk right in to God and ask Him for something. God hid His glory there, divided it from our common, unclean unworthiness, separating it from the rest of the Temple, and from man, by a curtain that went from the floor to the ceiling; a huge curtain symbolically showing the much more stark separation between the holy God and unholy man. This was not only a preservation of His holiness, but an act of mercy upon us lest we unwittingly perish by not realizing just how serious God is about retaining His holiness.
We went from that distance, from that separation, to being told to come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need, because what was separating us, what was preventing us from calling Him Father and from calling upon Him as such was torn apart when Jesus was crucified. When the Son received all the due judgment for man’s sin, there was no longer a need for the physical separation in the temple for even in heaven access to the Father had been gained for us by the Son. The gates of heaven were flung wide open to us and God ripped that big temple curtain in two, from top to bottom. That motion was significant because God in heaven had taken the action on our behalf. Christ, God in the flesh, had won us back from sin and death, so that we now we have been given salvation and its accompanying gifts of identity by which we now pray to God as His children. The same Christ Who told His disciples that they would ask Him nothing in that day said so because of the heaven He regained for all those who believe in His Name.
You are in that day. Christ’s Father has been reconciled to all creation and is now your Father. He is still the Almighty, yet, because of Jesus, you may now ask directly of your Father in heaven. This is how you know that you’ve been granted the right to talk to God. This is how you know that God will incline His ear to you, because you pray in Jesus’ Name. Because the atonement of Jesus has brought about peace between you and the Father, has restored you as believers to your position as children of God, you have but to refer to Jesus and His work, to appeal to His redemption, to be assured of the hearing of your prayers.
You can pray to God with the confidence that He always hears you and wants to hear every bit of what you have to say, all because of Christ. This is another aspect about your salvation by God’s doing alone that now reaps for you the treasures of heaven, such as being able to pray directly to the Lord above. You don’t deserve to be heard, but in Christ every word, every worry, every wrestle, and every petition is heard by your Father and answered perfectly according to His good and gracious will. He doesn’t ignore His children nor does He hear you because you deserve for Him to. The risen Lord Jesus Christ, your Mediator, your Great High Priest, now sits at the right hand of the Father, our Father, your Father, and all those His Son has redeemed He is eager to listen to in love, as only a heavenly Father perfectly does.
Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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