Protected by the Prayers of Jesus

                Being on an email prayer-request list, I get several prayer requests every day from brothers and sisters in Christ from around the globe. I know some of you are on that same list, in fact, or perhaps on another one. The number of requests from this single list alone underscores how much comfort and strength we all gain by knowing that others are praying for us. I have to admit, however, that I fall way short in actually responding in prayer to all the requests. When added to the many prayer needs in my own home congregation and community, from the world-evangelism work I am involved in, and just from my own life, it just seems so overwhelming that I find myself picking and choosing who and what I will pray for. I am ashamed to admit that, but I have to be honest.  Fortunately, however, we can be confident that there is someone praying for us who is absolutely faithful. That someone, of course, is Jesus, the greatest prayer-warrior that ever lived. This was true in his life on earth, and continues to be true in his resurrected, ascended state. Jesus is the ultimate pray-er.

                The gospel of Luke especially highlights Jesus as the pray-er. It is only in Luke that we learn that Jesus was praying as he was being baptized (Lk 3.21), praying the entire night before he chose the twelve (Lk 6.12-13), praying just prior to asking the twelve the crucial question about their understanding of his identity, as well as revealing his destiny to them for the first time (Lk 9.18f), and praying prior to and during his transfiguration (Lk 9.28-29). It is in Luke that we learn that Jesus often slipped away to the wilderness or to secluded places to pray (Lk 5.16; cf. 4.42). And it is only in Luke’s gospel that we learn from Jesus that he had been praying for Peter (Lk 22.31-32). While Luke seldom reveals to us the content of Jesus’ prayers, this last reference gives an idea of what might have occupied at least part of Jesus’ other petitions. He prayed (actually the word in Lk 22.32 is a word for “begged”) that Peter’s faith would not fail, and that once he falls, he would turn again. There’s an interesting thought in and of itself, by the way. Jesus prays that Peter’s faith would not fail, then suggests that it will—for why would he have to “turn again” (i.e., repent)? In fact, in the very next statement Jesus tells Peter he will deny him that very night (vs.34). So did Jesus’ prayer for Peter fail? Not at all, for Peter’s faith did not fail. Peter stumbled, but his faith brought him back to repentance, just as Jesus prayed it would. Peter was protected by the prayers of Jesus. Perhaps that gives new meaning to Peter’s own statement that we are “protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet 1.5). Maybe it is Jesus’ own faith in the Father that Peter has in mind.

 If Luke highlights the frequency of Jesus praying, John gives us the most detailed account of any single prayer of Jesus (Jn 17). And here Jesus prays on our behalf: “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one” (vs.15). As he prayed for Peter, so he prays for us—faithfully, fervently, and personally. He who “ever lives to make intercession for us” (Heb 7.25), guards us with his prayers. And there can be no greater source of strength and comfort than that.

© 2008 Randy Hohf