This is part of a much longer paper, the first one that I submitted for my Masters of Theology in Applied Theology course. It is for a unit called “Doctrine, Context, and Practice,” which are the basic building blocks of Applied Theology. If you are interested in reading all 7,000 words of the paper, let me know and I’d be happy to send it to you personally! Meanwhile, this gives you a taste of what I’ve been working on for the past 7 months.
This is for the Christian who feels helpless. The one who aches at the injustice of being out of control. The one who has tried positive thinking and hard work to no avail. The one with nowhere to go, no more resources to draw on, no more self to give. Ever been there? This is for you.
As Christians, we are taught to pray always because our faith is supposed to help us in hard situations, but sometimes it feels like prayer accomplishes very little. Our situation stays the same, and talking to God about what’s going on doesn’t always change our feelings, so it feels like a risk of faith to pray. The goal of this project is not to address questions about why God might not answer intercessory prayers from faith-filled Christians, nor does it seek to address why a good God would allow suffering. Instead, it seeks to find a source of comfort through prayer. We need to know that our suffering is known, and that in our helplessness, there is someone who is not helpless. We need to know that God is near. But what kind of help, and how do we get it?
I found one answer to that in Hebrews, in Jesus Christ, who “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.” (Hebrews 5:7) In order for us to pray like Jesus and frame other Scripture about prayer, we must understand that He prayed as high priest and as a sacrifice. Though the concept of “priest” as person leading a church might not be familiar to you, as it wasn’t for me, a deeper engagement with Jesus’ role as priest through Hebrews can still illuminate how God made his presence open to his people.
“Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:14-16)
Hebrews answers our question: through a confession of faith in a new priest who has already made an atoning sacrifice, we can approach the divine presence and find comfort. There is no longer a barrier between us and God because Jesus’ physical and spiritual sacrifice. Though it may feel like God is far, we have the ability to come near to him. His presence is open to us.
A major project of Hebrews is to rekindle the faith of its audience in Jesus Christ, so it explains at length the significance of Jesus as both God and man, divine and human. Without this dual nature, he could not have atoned for our sins. More than that, his dual nature means that he has felt our weakness. His suffering was marked by vulnerability as he was “handed over.” However, he also achieved victory over sin, and he sits at the right hand of God now, interceding for us. The only thing required from us now to enter into God’s presence and obtain his favour is the sacrifice of obedience from faith in Christ.
(There is a really long section here on Calvin’s Christology. Basically Jesus did something really cool as priest and opened the way for us to approach God’s throne with boldness. He says, “there is no access to God, for us or for our prayers until the priest, purging away our defilements, sanctify us, and obtain for us that favour of which the impurity of our lives and hearts deprive us” Institutes, II.XV.6)
Be careful when you read “sacrifice”; God doesn’t want actions, and we certainly cannot save ourselves. What he does want is an obedient heart. He wants all of us. As Henri Nouwen writes in Spiritual Formation, “Prayer is standing in the presence of God with the mind in the heart—that is, in the point of our being where there are no division or distinctions and where we are totally one within ourselves, with God, and with others and with the whole of creation. In the heart of God the Spirit dwells, and there the great encounter takes place. There, the heart speaks to heart as we stand before the face of the Lord, ever present, all seeing within us.” A prayer of faith for the believer imitates Christ’s prayer. We come with an almost paradoxical heart posture, of humility in weakness and boldness of faith, to be united with a loving God. We come believing “that we are to call upon God without fear, since we know that he is propitious to us, and that this may be done is owing to the benefit conferred on us by Christ…so that nothing appears [at the throne] but grace and paternal favour.” (Calvin in his commentary on Hebrews)
Prayer becomes sacrificial obedience that unites us with God when we hold fast to our confession of who God is and who we are, in the same way that Jesus prayed in obedience and came to the conclusion, “yet, not my will but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42) Jesus, at his weakest and most vulnerable, prayed to God the Father. He lamented, laying himself bare and giving responsibility for his suffering to God. Hebrews exhorts us to do the same, with the added assurance of victory achieved in Christ. The act of sacrificial obedience through prayer will not save us; Christ saved us from our sins and made a way to approach the throne of God, and our prayer in suffering is simply an acknowledgement of that. So then, prayer is an act of faith. As Moule writes in his commentary on Hebrews, “Thus the Epistle, on its way to recall its readers, at a crisis of confusion and temptation, to certainty, patience, and peace, leads them—not last but first—to Jesus Christ.”
So pray. Pray without ceasing, in all seasons and about everything. As Lewis writes, “We must not be too high-minded. I fancy we may sometimes be deterred from small prayers by a sense of our own dignity rather than God’s.” (Letters to Malcolm) God wants to hear the cares and worries on your heart, and your suffering is known. You, in your suffering, are known.
Hopeful Wanderer 