I was born // I was born to sing for you // I didn’t have a choice but to lift you up // And sing whatever song you wanted me to // I give you back my voice // From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise …

from the song  “Magnificent,” Bono & The Edge (Guitarist), May 2009

The disciples in Luke’s gospel confronts us with one of the extraordinary weaknesses in most of our lives – the need to pray. Life is a messy, busy affair. It is easy to fall victim to its distractions whether they be sports, alcohol and drugs, material consumption and its never ending shopping sprees, the allure of making it up the corporate ladder and so on. We are people that are always moving our buckets to the fountains of our efforts instead of to the springs of God’s grace and in the end, we never just “be”: instead we invest our identities in our own accomplishments ending up with so much harness, we can’t see the horse. We need prayer.

“Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he had finished, one of his disciples said, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.”

Our intrepid crew of 12 didn’t get things right very often, but here is one time I think they really nailed it. The disciples had repeatedly witnessed Jesus in prayer and recognized that they were in the presence of  one who knew the reality of prayer and knew the deep difference it made in life. They also realized how far removed they were from what they were witnessing. They were coming to see how significant and how central prayer needed to be in their lives and that alas, it was not so.

First, they knew Jesus to be a man of prayer and for Jesus, prayer was the way of life, a way of continual communication with God, his Father. They knew that sometimes he prayed all night long. There is a popular conception of Jesus being a social activist, placing emphasis on deeds, engaging in revolutionary action. All true. But Jesus was not a political activist that relied on human power to accomplish his purpose. He was at first and always, a man of prayer whose power came from those prayers. His prayers showed the necessity of prayer and demonstrated that he could do nothing without God and by extension, that we can do nothing without Christ. Do you remember the scene in Mark 9 when the our intrepid twelve failed to cast out the demon in the epileptic boy? “Why couldn’t we throw this spirit out?” they asked Jesus. Jesus answered: “throwing this kind of spirit out requires prayer.” We cannot conquer the moral and spiritual crises of our day by human effort. As Zechariah learned during the rebuilding of the temple, it would be accomplished “Neither by power, nor by strength, but by my spirit, says the Lord of heavenly forces.” We need to heed that message as well. No one can be brought to new life in Christ without prayer.

A second behavior the disciples witnessed was that from the beginning, Jesus prayed before every major crisis that he faced: he prayed at his baptism, at the beginning of his public ministry and he prayed when the Galileans wanted to make him king. He went into the wilderness to pray and prayed all night before choosing the 12. He prayed at the Transfiguration and he prayed in Gethsemane on his way to his death.  Prayer is the activity that should be front and center when we are faced with major decisions and problems. We need to pray in sickness as well as in health.

A third thing they saw was that Jesus prayed alone. And in case you missed him doing so, he taught us that as well – “Whenever you go to pray, go into your closet and pray in private and the Father who sees in private will reward you.…” Solitude is important – it’s not out of shame or embarrassment, but it’s to avoid interruptions. We gather in worship and pray – it is audible and corporate, but being alone with God in prayer is the ultimate test for the reality of prayer in our lives.

Finally, the fourth thing they noticed is how Jesus continually expressed his gratitude for the blessings in his life. He thanked God for hearing him when Lazarus was raised, he gave thanks for the loaf and fish before breaking it and feeding 5 thousand. Why do Christians need to pray asks question # 116 in the Heidelberg Catechism? “Because prayer is the chief part of thankfulness which God requires of us and because God gives His grace and Holy Spirit only to those who earnestly and without ceasing ask them of Him, and render thanks unto Him for them”

“I was born to sing, I was born to sing for you…” Lord teach us to pray…

Artwork: Christ’s Prayer on Oelber, by Carlo Crivelli, 1468