Easter 5—Rogate
Dear friends in Christ. The theme of the traditionally appointed Gospel for today gives this Sunday the name Rogate, which means “ask or pray”. Today is “praying Sunday.” Our attention turns to that glorious command and privilege the Lord has given His Church: Pray. Jesus tells His disciples that first Maundy Thursday evening and His Church down through the ages, you and me today [Jn 16.24]: Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. Here we are in the Easter season. We have over the past few weeks, especially, rejoiced in our Lord’s Easter morning resurrection for us over our greatest enemies of sin, death, devil and hell; later this week, on Thursday, we rejoice in our Lord’s ascension, as He as both God and man is welcomed into heaven with the job of the salvation of the world accomplished.
We have great Easter joy. And here Jesus tells us to ask, to pray, so that our joy may continue to be full. That means our Easter joy will not be a constant. The devil is always working together with the sinful world and our own sinful nature to rob us of that joy; to rip that joy of Easter out of our hearts. And that’s why prayer! We pray the Lord to keep us mindful of every heavenly and spiritual blessing; we pray the Lord to continue to give us every heavenly and spiritual blessing in His holy word and sacrament. Especially in difficult times and when we feel the Lord and His gracious presence absent—as the disciples were that evening of Jesus’ betrayal and arrest—we need to hear Jesus’ words again: Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
Pray, then, for every heavenly and spiritual blessing in Christ! For there and there alone is our full life and joy.
We examine our text today, which is the parable of the persistent widow or also called the unjust judge. And we do so with the question: Why do we pray?
1. The first reason we pray is because of us. We have great need and so we have great cause to pray. Our text begins: Then Jesus began to tell the disciples a parable. The point is this: this parable follows something that Jesus had been talking about. Jesus had been talking about His return in judgment on the Last Day; He was talking about the suddenness of His coming and that people weren’t expecting it, that life was merely going on “as normal.”
This background of Jesus’ return on the Last Day in judgment is quite fitting as we are just a few days away from the celebration of Jesus’ ascension. St. Luke records the words of the angels to the disciples at Jesus’ ascension [Ac 1.11]: This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven—visibly and in glory. The point of all this is simply this: prayer is a vital in preparation for Christ’s coming. If nothing else, we will be caught unawares; our hearts, love and faith will grow cold unless we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. One way we do so is by being in prayer. Prayer is our heart to heart talk with God; it is our conversation with Him, our speaking back to Him, after He has first spoken to us in His word. Where that conversation is going on in our hearts and lives between us and the holy God, how can we not look for and yearn for His coming?
The other point to remember about Jesus’ return in judgment on the Last Day—the flipside of His ascension—is that not only will life be seemingly “normal”, it will also be a time of increased Godlessness as people become more forgetful and defiant of the Lord and His will and His ways. Certainly we can see this going on around us today! The holy Christian faith will be increasingly under attack. What will the Christian do? We will, as Jesus says in our text: cry out day and night to Him. The dreadful, Godless conditions will cause us to cry out continually to the Lord for help and rescue. The beleaguered saints living in an unbelieving world will pray fervently, day and night, as they long for Jesus’ return to take them to heaven, our true home. We pray that we are and remain rightly prepared for His 2nd Coming. We pray because of our need as Christians living in a sinful world!
Precisely what we pray for is the faith to persevere. Isn’t that ultimately what Jesus is telling the disciples when He told them: Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full? We pray that we may remain now in the faith so that we may receive every heavenly and spiritual blessing and so our joy will be as full here on earth as it can be; but, really, ultimately our joy will only truly be complete once we are in heaven with our Lord. When we realize how precious the gift of faith is that God has given us by the work of His Holy Spirit in word and sacrament, we will all the more fervently pray to the Lord day and night to keep us in that faith.
Our text: Now there was a widow in that city; and she kept coming to him, saying, 'Get justice for me from my adversary'. We are like that widow in that as Christians, not only are we praying that the Lord keep us in the true faith but that He would get us justice, that He would vindicate us, declare us righteous, against our adversaries, our opponents: the devil, the world and our own sinful flesh and blood. Only then can our joy be full as we live out our lives as Christians here on earth. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. So what do we ask for? The forgiveness of sin and the perfect righteousness of Christ! The devil works together with the sinful world and our own sinful self to lead us into sin. Then he accuses us of sin to drag us down to hell—and rightly so—but we keep coming day and night before the Lord asking Him to vindicate us; that is to forgive us our sins for Jesus’ sake and to credit us with His perfect, sinless life.
We are persistent in our prayers for forgiveness of our sin and that Lord keep us in the faith. That’s the point of Jesus’ parable—that persistence in prayer as we live out our Christian lives. The persistence in prayer is for the greater gifts and blessings, the spiritual ones. Our persistent prayers have a focus on our spiritual need. Only by going to the Lord in prayer and asking Him by His power and work in the word and sacrament to keep us in the one true saving faith will we remain in the faith, persevere and have that full joy both now—as we in that faith receive vindication, forgiveness in Christ— and full joy forever in heaven.
Left to ourselves, we couldn’t bring ourselves to faith and we certainly can’t keep ourselves in the faith. So as we feel and recognize our need, we pray. Just as that widow was helpless in our text, with no power and authority to do anything but keep going to the judge for justice, so too we are spiritually helpless and can do nothing but keep going to the Lord asking Him by His power and mercy to keep us in the faith. The glorious difference between the unjust judge of our text and our God is that the unjust judge was shamed into doing the right thing but our God wants to hear and answer prayer: Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
We pray because of our need to pray—for forgiveness of sin and for perseverance in the faith. But recognizing our need to pray why do we pray? Why don’t we just “try to do it ourselves”? Answer: our faith! Because we have that Spirit worked gift of faith in our hearts that looks to the Lord and trusts in Him, we cannot but pray to the Lord for His greatest gifts of forgiveness of sin and perseverance in the faith! True prayer flows from faith and as we are persistent like that widow in our Lord’s parable, faith is continually recognizing and receiving our Lord’s blessings so that even in the midst of earthly trials our joy is full—the Lord has heard and answered our prayer, forgiven our sin—and, recognizing it, faith is strengthened.
2. In our text, why did the widow keep going to that judge? –He was the only one who could get her justice. Why do we Christians keeping going in prayer to the holy Triune God?—Because we recognize and confess Him as the only God and the only One who can answer our prayers. We only go to the one who can help us. In reality, prayer is an act of worship. It is led, prompted by faith and is a confession of that faith. Dear Christian, not only, then, do we pray because of our need, but we pray because of God and who He is.
The widow in Jesus’ parable keeps going to the judge only because he alone can help her, not because he is a good guy: "There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. 3 Now there was a widow in that city; and she kept coming to him, saying, 'Get justice for me from my adversary.' And for some time he kept refusing; but afterward he said within himself, 'Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me I will give her justice, lest by her continual coming she weary me' ". We pray to the holy Triune God not only because He alone can help, but also, what’s better, because He is our dear, loving heavenly Father. If this unjust judge of the parable grants this woman’s request, how much more will our gracious heavenly Father hear and answer our prayers for that which makes our joy full—forgiveness of sin, faith and every other blessing He wants to give us! The point of our Lord’s parable is to continue in prayer; pray day and night—we always have need.
And the glorious promise? Our prayers will be heard—not because of our many words and repeating but because God is our kind, gracious, loving heavenly Father. Jesus tells us in our text: Then the Lord said, "Hear what the unjust judge said. And God will certainly give justice to His elect who cry out day and night to Him, and be patient with them, will He not? I tell you that He will give them justice speedily. We know God wants us to keep going to Him in all our needs; we need never fear that we go to Him in prayer “once too many”—that’s the point of this parable—and in faith we know that He loves to show mercy; showing us mercy is His delight [Mi. 7.18]!
Here is our comfort in our greatest struggles/ trials as we fight against sin, as we face sorrow and dejection, as our faith is attacked, as we see and experience society around us rejecting and rebelling against the Lord. We need never despair! We need never give up and say: “What’s the use?” Instead, we go to the Lord, our dear loving heavenly Father, in prayer and He will hear and answer our prayer in the best possible way for us. “What’s the use?” /despair forgets about what a gracious and just God does in response to the prayers of His Christians.
Also in our Lord’s parable the judge is described as one who did not…regard man. That means that he didn’t care about that widow; she was nothing to him. How different is the case with the Lord and His dear Christians who go to Him in prayer with all their needs! He loves us! Notice what Jesus calls us, His dear Christians: the elect of God. The prayers of the Christians come from those in whom the Lord as a great interest—His elect. The Christian is the one God chose from all eternity to be, for Christ’s sake, His dear child and heir. As we regard ourselves as one of our Lord’s elect, as His dear child and heir of heaven, how can we doubt that the Lord hears and answers our prayers and wants us to pray to Him always?
Don’t let the devil plant the thought in your mind that you, because of your sin, are too unworthy to go before God in prayer. Prayer is a bold thing—the sinner dare approach the holy God, even day and night? Yes! Because of Christ we can! Our sins are forgiven; Christ has born the punishment of our sins and has opened to us the way back to God. And God will…be patient with them.
We pray because prayer is the glorious privilege of the Christian. It delights the Lord when we go to Him in prayer day and night—because of our great need as we live in this world; and because He is our dear heavenly Father He loves us and wants to hear and answer our prayers in the best possible way for us. INJ Amen