Is My Praying Turned Inside Out?

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            I wonder if my praying has been turned inside out.  When I began to be involved in a church where we prayed and worshipped liturgically, led as it were by an ordained minister or priest I gradually came to think differently about prayer.  When a congregation gathers to worship God in a liturgical prayer service, we pray as a congregation when we are called to do so.  There is a call to pray.  In the worship service in which I am involved the call to prayer begins when the one leading the service saying, “The Lord be with you.”  The congregants respond by blessing the minister as well saying, “And with thy spirit.” (Some more modern liturgies based on our tradition say “And with you also.”  The minister then says “Let us pray.”  In the liturgical concept of prayer the congregation is called to pray by a minister whose responsibility it is to represent God leading God’s people to pray, but also to represent a church as it responds to God’s call to worship.  That is why so many liturgical churches view their ordained ministry as “priests.”  They are not priests in the sense of being an additional level placed between God and God’s people, but as leaders in a church they serve the function of calling the church to worship and leading the church in the worship.  In our tradition when the minister or priest calls the church to worship he faces the congregation as one speaking to the congregation and when he leads the church to worship in the office of the ministry he faces the front (or the liturgical east unto which we look for Christ) and as one who prays with the church unto God he faces the liturgical east even as the rest of the church does.  The clergyman is not in his own person an intermediary between God and the Church, but in his office he issues God’s call to worship and he leads the Church as a member of the church in making the response to God’s call to worship.

The early church quickly recognized that such a minister was an icon, or a symbol, or an illustration of Christ’s work of priesthood but there was a recognition first strong and later perhaps more faintly that Christ is the ultimate priest who alone as both God and Man calls upon man to pray, and leads men to the throne of God’s grace.  There is but one priest and mediator in that sense between God and man.  But in the ordained office as a pastor, bishop, or presbyter, the man who fills the office is vested in the representation of Christ to call men within the Gospel to pray and to lead men as believers to pray in congregational worship.  This is representative of the work of Christ who truly calls us to pray and leads us in prayer.

A liturgical congregational understanding of worship and prayer has gradually had an impact on how I think about prayer and the prayers by which we enter into the presence of God.  There is a sense in the liturgical understanding of prayer and worship that the invisible presence and invisible reality is as essential to everything done by the congregant and congregation as is the visible reality presented in the worship.  The office of the minister might visibly lead the church, but it is understood that the head of the church represented by the office of the Church is our Lord Jesus Christ, the mediator between God and man.  We may in our descriptions of our clergy describe our clergymen as priests, but this does not necessarily mean that we think the clergyman replaces either Christ as the sole mediator between God and man, nor does the ordained clergyman replace the whole of the church and the whole of the membership of the church as the called priesthood of the believer in the church of our Lord.  It is in their clergy's office that they are called to represents God’s call to the church in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and it is in that office as leaders who are servants of the churchly priesthood that they lead those who worship to come as one and as all in the Lord's priesthood to the throne of grace.

What I am saying is that praying liturgically in congregational prayers has led me to recognize and realize all the more that my praying is a liturgical response to God’s calling and God’s grace.  I pray not because somehow I decided to take it upon myself to pray, but I pray because God in his grace has turned me from looking to myself for all my own answers in life and has called me to worship him, and to depend upon him for every good gift given from heaven.  Liturgical worship has taught me that God called out to me and said, “The Lord be with you.”  I answered “And with thy spirit” or “And with you also” and then our Lord said, “Let us pray.”  Our truest forms of prayer are when we look outside of ourselves and unto God as God calls us to put away our trust in ourselves and to look to him for every good thing both in heaven and on earth.

A Biblical account which reminds me of this is the account of Christ’s asking his disciples to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Jesus went out to the Garden to pray and asked his tired disciples to pray with him.  But they grew weary and fell asleep.  Jesus, then momentarily separated from his disciples prayed in agony perhaps made aware that the hour was upon him when every disciple would fall away from him and he would go to his suffering as the Lamb of God and the sole mediator between God and man.  He prayed as all his disciples were torn from him, by their weariness or whatever else our excuses might have been that his cup might be taken from him.  He was alone before God, the disciples who would become his leaders of the new church representing Christ had all decided they were too weary, tired, and exhausted to enter the worship to which Jesus called them.  Through this falling away of the disciples and all mankind Jesus was set apart to be the one and only one who could pray to the Father for the well being of our humanity.  It was his hour, the hour when he would become the one and only mediator between God and man, when in Gethsemane he asked his disciples to stay and pray with him, but all failed.  The cup he was about to drink was now clear before his eyes.  He was alone, and no one could join him in his hour of trial.  He was to become the singular Lamb of God who dies for the sin of the world.  No voice could plead for sinners but his.  No good deeds could stand before the throne of God but his.  He asked us to pray with him and none of us, not one disciple answered the call.  Like Israel in the days of Joshua and Caleb, those who refused to follow over into the Promised Land would now have to wait until God in his mercy called us again to pray.  We who so easily turned aside from submitting to his call to prayer cannot of our own will later make amends for failing to pray when the great day of our Lord's testing was upon our Lord.  Rather we must wait to come to the throne of grace until after the Lamb of God has taken our place on the Cross.  We answer the call to the throne of grace after our Lord opens up heaven to us and calls upon us to pray in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and by the Spirit of God.

Something wonderful happened forty days after Christ rose from the dead.  For forty days he remained on earth and made his presence known to his disciples.  His disciples had fallen away, those he had called upon to follow him and to lead his church (once his earthly ministry had ended) had all turned away at Gethsemane.  One of the things we see in the forty days when he lingered upon earth after his resurrection was his reclaiming his downcast and discouraged disciples.  He appeared to Peter and the other disciple on the road to Emmaus.  He appeared to the eleven in the Upper Room, and finally he appeared to Thomas.  If we had followed him in that band of disciples and had failed him as we surely would have on the night in Gethsemane then he would have sought us out.  God’s grace has been described by some as “persevering grace.”  The Lord, who calls his people to himself, does not allow his people to turn away but rather he seeks his own that none may be lost.  He is the good shepherd who seeing one of his sheep fall away from the flock where his life is secured, goes out to find the lost sheep and to bring him back into the fold.  He did that with his disciples after Gethsemane.  He did that with them and it is what he does with us who believe and then stumble, and then find that he calls us back to himself and restores us to the flock.  I suppose that there is in many of us a calling back with each gathering of Christ’s people.  We have through a week’s time both sought the Lord and failed at some time to maintain a proper prayerful joyous attitude in the Lord.  We come back week after week to hear the Lord’s call recognizing that in ourselves we cannot come worthily to the throne of grace.  But the Lord speaking through his church, through his ordained minister, through the Gospel says in effect, “The Lord be with you.”  We hear the gracious words calling us to worship and thankful for such gracious words we reply “And with thy Spirit” or “And with you also.”  Then with bowed heads, perhaps kneeling, we hear those beautiful words “Let us pray.”  The locks on the gate to the throne of grace have been opened by the Son of David who holds the keys of grace in his hands.  He has opened wide the gates and we come into the temple and hear the gracious words “Let us pray.”

Do you see what I mean when I say that in God’s worship what takes place invisibly is as essential as what takes place visibly?  Visibly what takes place is a call to prayer and worship which is issued by a man given the office of the ministry.  But what takes place invisibly is that Christ has called upon us to pray.  Visibly what takes place is that an earthly congregation responds to the call of prayer and worship with prayer and worship; but invisibly there is an intercessor in heaven who is seated bodily on the throne of grace.  He is the one true mediator, fully God and fully man and he intervenes on behalf of men and women, praying continually night and day on the throne of grace where this same Savior and Lord who prays without ceasing has been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

If you are beginning to follow the Scripture’s picture of heaven, then you will understand that everything in heaven revolves around this throne of grace where our Lord has been seated and given all authority in heaven and on earth.  As Christ prays in heaven, what happens in heaven?  The cherubim, seraphim, and those spirits of just men made perfect (Hebrews 12:23), the saints around the glassy sea; all are surely gathered around the throne of grace to join their spirits, energies, thoughts, and their wills to pray in conjunction with the great high priest who has been given all authority in heaven and on earth.  This vision of heaven with the great high priest seated with all authority in heaven and on earth has forever altered my understanding of prayer in heaven.  It has brought to a fresh focus so many issues discussed about the prayers of the various persons and creatures in heaven.

Do the saints pray for us on earth while they are in heaven at this time?  Is that really an issue?  Do we imagine that while Christ is praying earnestly for his whole church, that his church members in heaven are off doing something else?  Surely as our Lord prays so is the church of just men made perfect in the heavenly places also praying.  Surely if our Lord has been granted all authority in heaven and on earth then the angels who are serving him in faithful ministry to him are likewise agreeing around the throne of grace to join their prayers as his servants to his own intercessory pleadings.  Surely if our Lord’s mother who by faith let it be done to her according to God’s word is now in the heavenly places she is making prayers with our Lord Jesus Christ.  All of these things are most surely true but they are most surely true for the simple reason that He who has been made Lord over heaven and earth and has been made the one true intercessor for our sins is praying continually now in heaven, and at the center of heaven as he prays all heaven prays with him.

So I may say boldly that when Christ prays and when the Church on earth prays, so also prays the heavenly host.  Should we ask angels, saints, Mary, and other just men made perfect to pray for us?  I don’t think we need to make such prayers, nor are we shown such prayers in Holy Scripture.  The greater issue though was raised at Gethsemane.  Jesus asked his disciples to pray with him as he prayed.  But when he returned from his anguish-filled praying he found them having fallen asleep.  That is now the great issue for us.  I have no doubt that our Lord in heaven is praying continually without ceasing, night and day, for his church on earth and in heaven.  I have no doubt that the saints and just men made perfect are joining him in his prayers for us.  I have no doubt that the angels on high are praying with him.  I have no doubt that our Lord’s mother, and truly as our Lord’s mother the mother of God, is praying on our behalf as her dear son and her dear Savior leads heaven in prayer as the great high priest.  For the blessed Mary had this disposition when she spoke while on earth saying, “Whatever he says to you, do it.” (John 2:5)  As he prays for us, I have no doubt she prays for us as well.  That leaves only one question to ask.  “Are we seeking to join him in his prayers?"

My thoughts of prayer have been changed by this.  I think of how often I have heard preachers speaking of the power of prayer.  Sometimes all this has been proclaimed in such a way as to lead us to think that through our prayers we are able to get God to do something he would not otherwise do.  But perhaps we have turned prayer and the power of God inside out.  Perhaps the truth is that it is Jesus who is praying all along for all the good blessings that would be ours.  He is doing this because unto this task was he called by His father and it pleased him as much as he pleased his father for there is perfect unity of purpose in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The power of prayer is not that we somehow convince God to change his mind about blessing a world in despair, but rather the power of prayer is that somehow we who are timid and cold and weak are changed as we come into the presence of God and begin to be changed as we submit ourselves to the power of his intercessory prayer as the Great High Priest who alone intercedes on behalf of sinful men.  He alone it was who began to pray his intercessory prayer on our behalf.  But then he began to be joined by a multitude of the heavenly host and the earthly throng until no man that number could count.  The healing of the woman with an issue of blood was a healing that flowed forth from the virtue of Christ as she took hold of his garment.  So the power of prayer is not something which changes the mind of Christ or the will of God, but is rather an outgoing of the energy of the virtue of Christ granted to flow outwards into human lives needing redemption, cleansing, forgiveness, healing, and empowerment.

In recent months I have gotten once more acquainted with an old friend, John Armstrong.  He has in his recent years desired to use much of his strength and energy to encourage the divided Christians whom Christ has redeemed towards unity in Christ.  I think he would agree that few things would more lead to the unity of Christendom than for all of us who name our Lord Jesus Christ as Savior to live in the constant awareness that all of our prayers are brought into existence because there is an intercessor on the throne of grace who is praying constantly and without ceasing.  If that awareness were more fully impressed upon our hearts and minds we would be grieved that the church who has been called to be the bride of Christ has instead of eyeing her dear bridegroom’s face has been fixed on the finery of her own dress.  Is not that the source of so many of our divisions?  We have been thinking to pray in our own ways and have carped at how another who loves Christ has prayed and worshipped instead of realizing that every faithful prayer proceeds faithfully from the energy and potency of our Lord's intercessory prayers.  More than theological discussion papers, our unity will be fostered by an acknowledgement that our unity flows not from our incomplete activities of piety and devotion but from the perfect and holy prayers made in utter grace and issued forth from the lips of our great High Priest’s throne of grace as he prays on our behalf.

The nineteenth century hymn had it right, “the bride eyes not her garment, but her dear bridegroom’s face.”  In prayer the men and women who make up the priesthood of the church do not so much think of all their prayers, but rather are to be aware that they have been issued an invitation to pray along our High Priest as he prays without ceasing, day and night, until every last one of his redeemed is to be brought into the heavenly kingdom.  Such prayer is so astounding that at times it is uttered forth in total powerful silence.  We may pray most diligently, when we simply speak no words and determine to wait for Christ to break the silence.  So St. John in the Book of Revelation recorded at times that there was silence in the kingdom of heaven for half an hour.  Do we believe that prayer ceased in that half hour?  Or were these the moments when our Savior's prayers were so intense that they were offered not in words but with a simple stretching forth of pierced hands and feet, and a wounded side that eloquently spoke what no words ever uttered spoke?  If we pray with him we may pray and be silent, but it will not be sleeping before our Lord, but submitting to him in our silence as he prays for the world continually.  It is not we who remind him of the needs of others, but rather it is he who in remembering others places the needs of others into our minds and hearts that we might join him as he prays.

Has my praying been turned inside out or have I merely begun to learn what it is to pray?  I trust that you will take these words and seek God to learn the truth of the matter.