Mystery, Prayers, and Grace Biskie

Mystery, Prayers, and Grace Biskie

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            This morning I woke up determined to write nothing today.  Sometimes I write too much.  Sometimes I am not as well-informed as I imagine myself to be.  I don’t intend to write as someone who is an expert.  I write as someone who understands himself (at least sometimes I understand this) as part of a process.  Writing is one form by which we enter the dialogue of the human conversation.  One person speaks and then another; and one conversation leads to thoughts that get expressed in hundreds of other conversations, and become tangents that become whole new conversations.  That is sort of how life works.  I am the sort of rude person who always imagines he has something to say and so I wanted to take a break from being that annoying person who always has something to say.

            But then I read a tweet on Twitter by Grace Biskie describing her understanding of her relationship to others, a sense of her gift of empathy and her ministry of prayer.  She uses a word that maybe you might not wish her to use but I loved this piece here that you might want to read to understand what led me to want to write on the mystery of our prayers in connection to Christ’s prayers as our great High Priest.

            I don’t know Grace Biskie personally, but through following her on Twitter and having occasional interaction with her there, I believe that she is ministering in the way she presents her understanding of her personal ministry in the post I linked to.  I was thinking of mystery in the Christian life earlier today and when I read Grace’s words the two themes just sort of wove themselves together in my mind; prayer and mystery.

            I’ve come to understand prayer, in the Christian understanding of it to always be connected to Christ’s work as the Great High Priest.  The work of Christ as High Priest, described in the Book of Hebrews has helped me understand simply some of the great debates between Christians of differing traditions.  It helped me to understand that the saints in heaven, you know those spirits of just men made perfect described in the Book of Hebrews, do pray for us.  I mean what else would they do all day long in heaven, where their relationship to Christ is central to their experience in heaven while he is continually praying intercessory prayers for us on earth?  What do you and I do when a priest or minister is praying in a church service?  I know sometimes we daydream, but sometimes we listen to what the minister is praying and we pray along, and we pray the “Amen” in agreement.  That is what the saints in heaven are doing when Christ prays.  It would make no sense for them not to join our Lord in his intercessory prayers.  It makes this thing of saints’ prayers pretty simple when you think of them worshipping God as Christ prays; their prayers being one with his.  Like us they are praying with their whole personalities in agreement with the Great High Priest.

            But Grace’s post actually made me see, in a transforming way, this whole phenomenon of our praying in conjunction with Christ’s praying as the Great High Priest.  Grace speaks of praying because she sees a need to be brought before the throne of grace, and a need for some … intervening grace.  I suspect and also hope that some of the readers of this blog are Calvinists and others are Arminian.  I hope this because prayer is a mystery which neither side of the soteriological debate can claim as their full property.  I have often thought of how Christ’s work as High Priest is a pattern for my participation in liturgical worship.  Christ prays, and like the saints in heaven we pray in our liturgical worship with him.  But Grace reminded me how this work of prayer isn’t just a top down thing, but also a bottom up phenomenon where those getting dumped on in the sludge pits of life here on earth have an access line to our Father in heaven.  Her post reminds us that one of the things we do as brothers and sisters in Christ, is to see situations and needs for one another and begin praying for some “get real” intervention.

            This means that prayer is in the mystery of worship and intercession connected to the mystery of the Living Church, of Christ being one with us in the Living body, His church.  The church feeds upon the life of Christ.  We are baptized into him.  We partake of his body and blood.  We dwell in him, and he in us.   This mystery of Christ’s union with the church helps to explain the mystery of prayer.

            St. Paul made a comment to the Colossians that seems strange at first glance and might seem almost heretical.  He says to the Colossians, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is of the church.”  (Colossians 1:24 ESV)  It may strike us as almost heretical for someone to say that he is filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.  But this seems to be part of how our participation in the Gospel works.  When St. Paul speaks of how all things work together for good to those who believe, (Romans 8:28) his further explanation of this truth doesn’t mean everything is going to appear smooth sailing and make us feel honky-dory all the time.  The truth is all things are working together for good even though we sometimes have to remember that we are as sheep to be slaughtered all the day long.  (Romans 8:36)  We participate in the Gospel as members of Christ’s body, in connection to him as our head, by being his body on earth that suffers, cries out, and prays; and this is part of how we actually participate in filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ.  Grace speaks of herself as a gatherer that collects the experiences and sorrows of others and lifts them up to Christ.  That is what we do as members of Christ in the church.  We are Christ’s body on earth.  Through us he gathers, and we gather to bring to him, these needs that we feel for because in Christ we have been granted concern, empathy, as we are brought to have a bit of the mind of Christ in us.  So we are taught in him to empathize and to desire good gifts for those who need it, and we lift these prayers up to the throne of grace, and these prayers become our Lord’s prayers of intercession.  That is astonishing isn’t it?  This is the mystery of prayer, the mystery of the church, the mystery of the body of Christ’s oneness with Christ living in us and us living in him.  That is the mystery of us somehow being included in filling out the sufferings of Christ.

            So I had to write this today, because I got the feeling that Grace gets tired and exhausted and feels her limits.  She is not alone.  She is doing a wonderful work and it is part of all this mystery and wonder, and some of us have gotten sidetracked and have lost the sense that down here on earth people are getting dumped on and need some expletive deleted needed intervention.  Grace is an example.  I am sure there are many more examples.  Today her post spoke to me as I was thinking about mystery and somehow the two seemed to match perfectly.  In the mystery of Christ’s becoming one with his body on earth, his prayers are gathered for his daily intervention through his body on earth discovering concerns, needs, desires, and in Him by the Spirit expressing them so that he may take what we lift up and lift up in complete perfection to the Father.  Let this be an encouragement to us all.  We who are participating in the Gospel are filling out the sufferings of Christ and are connected thus to his high priestly prayers being prayed in heaven by Christ and spirits of just men made perfect, and on earth in Christ and the church by the Spirit unto the Father.  Our participation isn’t like travelers riding a bus, but as miners digging out the precious finds from the earthen soil of men.  Thus we pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  We are on earth bodily, but we are also in heaven because we are one with Christ.  He is in heaven bodily, but he is also on earth because he is pleased to dwell in oneness with us through the Spirit and unto the Father.   We are filling out his sufferings and our prayers are ascending into the heavens and Christ is lifting them up sanctified and perfected unto the Father.  Our prayers are ascending into heaven and God’s response will also to a large degree descend down into the earth to be expressed in answer form through the very people who are participants in the Gospel.  Grace Biskie, your post reminded me of these things today, and even pointed me to some fresh appreciation for our part in it all.  Thank you.