Easter 5—Rogate
Dear friends in Christ. Our text comes to us from Jesus’ talk with His disciples on Maundy Thursday evening, shortly before His betrayal and arrest. In it Jesus was giving His disciples comfort and assuring them of the coming of the Holy Spirit. In the midst of this discussion Jesus talks to His disciples a bit about prayer. And that’s our text this morning! In fact, this Sunday has the Latin name “Rogate”, which means “to ask” and comes from our text: Ask, and you will receive. The theme of this Sunday is that most precious and comforting of doctrines: prayer.
Prayer has rightly been defined as the Christian’s heart to heart talk with God. The vital word there is “Christian.” Not everything that people call “prayer” is really a right, God-pleasing prayer, one that He hears. That’s what Jesus talks about in our text when He says: Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you. That little phrase, in My name, is vital. Praying in Jesus’ name isn’t just tacking the phrase in Jesus’ name at the end of a prayer. If that were the case, the Lord’s Prayer wouldn’t be a valid prayer. Instead, as we’ll discover from our text, praying in Jesus’ name means praying because of His command, praying with firm trust in His saving work, and praying in humble submission to God’s will knowing that His will is best.
1. Jesus is very clear: Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. That little word “ask” is an imperative. Jesus is commanding us to pray. So, yes, prayer is a command. “Ask”— it is something that Christ here commands His Christians to do and so technically it is a statement of law; but really it is a gracious invitation. Asking or praying—because Christ commands us to—is something that will mark, that will be a characteristic of the Christian’s life. St. Paul, in fact, tells us that the Christian is to pray without ceasing.
Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. When Jesus commands prayer of His Christian, it’s the same thing that He commanded of His Old Testament believers. In the Psalm 50:15, for example, the Lord says: Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will glorify you, and you shall glorify Me. Here is that command—but it is glorious, gracious command to pray, to call upon the Lord.
Prayer is commanded by God Himself. When we pray, what are we doing? It is a very humbling thing because we are recognizing and confessing that we cannot do it all on our own; we are recognizing and confessing that God Almighty, the holy Triune God, alone can and does help; can and does “change the situation”. Because prayer is taking God at His word and at His command, because it is faith in action, prayer is true worship. A true Christian prayer is trust in God, saying “yea and amen” to His word and promise. It shows the faith of the heart going to the One it believes not only commanded but Who alone can and does help.
It is a good thing that Christ has given the command to us “pray”; that He has “laid down the law”—Pray! It is not drudgery to follow this command. Instead, it is the greatest joy because we have the command from Almighty God Himself to go to Him, to pray to Him, to seek His help and guidance. If there were not the command from our Lord, “Pray!” how easy it would be for our old sinful nature to find a mighty excuse not to pray; how easy it would be for the devil to keep whispering in our ear—who are you that you dare to approach the holy God Himself. What a glorious grace there is in this command! There can never and must never be any doubt in our minds—God wants us to go to Him in prayer and He will hear and answer that prayer. That’s what praying in the name of Jesus means—it means in faith holding to His command to pray and following it because He, the almighty God, in grace invites us to come to Him in prayer.
2. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you... Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. Praying in Jesus’ name also means praying with firm trust in Jesus and His saving work. That’s the reason why only a Christian can rightly pray. The one who is not a Christian, yes, instinctively knows that there is a God, a Higher/ Supreme Being. But not knowing the true God rightly, Paul [Romans 8:7] says that the heart of such a person is filled with enmity/ hostility against God. To be sure, such people in times of great calamity, sorrow, affliction, etc. will cry out to that God that they instinctively knows exists, offer the “God if you are out there” sort of “prayer”. But this isn’t prayer, but the cry of a despairing heart.
Instead, true Christian prayer is prayed in Jesus’ name which means that in firm faith we not only know that there is a God and that the one true God is the Holy Triune God—but that in Jesus His judgment of condemnation has been changed to forgiveness and life; that in Jesus our sins are forgiven and we sinners are reconciled to God; that in Jesus He is gracious and merciful to us and wants to help us. In other words, hearing the gracious command of the Lord to pray, the Christian is in faith bold to take the Lord up on His gracious command because he/ she trusts in Jesus and His work—that He reconciled us sinners to the Holy God. We can pray because of Jesus’ saving work for us first.
Jesus describes His work this way: “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father." His disciples said to Him, “Now we are sure that You know all things, and have no need that anyone should question You. By this we believe that You came forth from God." Jesus’ “coming forth” from the Father is when He, the Son of God, became also a true human being. Not only did God become man, but when He entered the misery of this world Jesus did not always or fully use all His divine power and majesty. He was tempted by the devil—yet never sinned. He obeyed all of God’s holy Law for us. Then He took our sins with Him to the cross and there suffered and died for them, enduring all God’s wrath and punishment. Because He had fully paid the price for the sin of the world and reconciled sinful humanity with the holy God, Jesus rose from the dead! Since all Jesus’ work to save the world and reconcile sinners to the holy God is done, He ascended into heaven: Again, I leave the world and go to the Father.
That’s why we pray—not only do we have God’s command “pray”, but Jesus’ coming from the Father and going to Him—His life, death, resurrection and ascension—changed our relationship with God. We, dear Christian, now know God as our dear, loving heavenly Father. Trusting in Jesus and His work—why would we not, how could we not go in prayer to our gracious God?
Praying in Jesus’ name, we, dear Christian, are bold to approach God because trusting in Jesus and His work for our forgiveness we are confident that we will find mercy and help from the Father. Ours is never a “God-if-you-are-out-there” sort of prayer, but one that is certain of Jesus’ work for us and therefore expects nothing but that God graciously hears it—after all He commanded us to pray and Christ reconciled us. In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you. Through Jesus, we now have direct access to the Father. With Jesus’ completed work, the direct way to the Father has been fully established. And what’s even more wonderful—not only do we pray directly to God but Jesus Himself intercedes, “pleads our case” with the Father.
What a glorious message: the road to the Father’s heart has been opened by Jesus for us. What a glorious motivation to pray—and trusting in Jesus’ work that’s why we do pray. Making this forgiveness, peace all the more certain to us is our baptism. In our baptism, we are clothed with Jesus and His righteousness; we are brought into God’s holy family as in a very dear and special way He is our Father and we His dear children. At baptism [Mt 3.17] God says of us as He said of Jesus at His baptism: This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Trusting in Jesus and His work, we are bold to approach the Father as, in Christ, His dear children. Our baptism is that certainty of that new relationship before God.
3. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Praying in Jesus’ name means that we pray as God has commanded us, trusting in Jesus and His work—not in our works—and also it means—and this is perhaps the most difficult thing: humble submission to God’s will. What stands behind our humbly submitting ourselves to the Lord’s will is our faith/trust in Jesus and His work and the certainty of God’s love for us. Jesus says in our text: for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God. Certain of God’s loves for us in Christ, we know that God will answer our prayers in the best way for us and at the best time for us.
The argument is raised here—trying to use our Lord’s words against Him—Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. That little word whatever is used by some to try to make us think that God has to give us whatever our whim is. Do we really know what is best for us? Do we really know what best serves our salvation or the salvation of others? Do we really know the true end result of what we pray for? Hardly! But God does. We have to take seriously our sinful nature that is with us to our dying breath. Prayer does not make God simply our servant to carry out our whims—dictated more often than not by our old sinful nature. Instead, prayer prayed in the name of Jesus prays as He did in Gethsemane—even He who had no sinful nature shuddered at the thought of dying cursed by God as the world’s sinner, prayed Let this cup pass from Me, but immediately added: nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will. That’s humble submission to God’s will!
The will of a Christian—that new self in us created by God in baptism/ that Christian in us that is always fighting against sin and the old sinful self in us—coincides with God’s will. It seeks and desires the things of God; it wants to do and fulfill His holy will/ desire. That’s why from our hearts we submit our will to the Lord and ask Him to give us not according to our whims but what’s in accord with His will and command; what best serves our and our neighbor’s spiritual good. Where what we pray for goes beyond this, we in faith recognize it as null and void from the get-go and humbly submit ourselves to the Lord nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.
Let us again hear our Lord’s words from our text: Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. When we pray in humble submission to the Lord’s will, we are praying for what can really satisfy so that we may have the full, deep, spiritual joy that stands even in the midst of sorrow and hardship. That is something only the Lord knows how to and does grant us.
Prayer—what a glorious privilege we have as Christians to bring before the Lord our worries, hurts, troubles, praises and thanksgivings! Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. And we do so, praying in Jesus’ name—that is, at His command, with firm trust in Him and His saving work and in humble submission to God’s will. INJ Amen