23 On
that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask
anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. 24 Until
now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so
that your joy may be complete. 25 “I have said these things to
you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you
in figures, but will tell you plainly of the Father. 26 On that
day you will ask in my name. I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on
your behalf; 27 for the Father himself loves you, because you
have loved me and have believed that I came from God. 28 I came
from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and
am going to the Father.” 29 His disciples said, “Yes, now you
are speaking plainly, not in any figure of speech! 30 Now we
know that you know all things, and do not need to have anyone question you; by
this we believe that you came from God.” 31 Jesus answered
them, “Do you now believe? 32 The hour is coming, indeed it has
come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me
alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. 33 I
have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face
persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”
His feats were legendary. Good looking, accomplished
military commander, successful merchant – many looked at him as a model of
heroism and truth leading to him becoming a major-general. Distinguished in
many battles – Saratoga, Ridgefield, Fort Stanwix, often with a small force
against superior odds, he proved himself time and time again as one of the more
successful military strategist of the American Revolutionary war – a claim
substantiated by the throngs of people who would shout his name as he entered
towns that dotted that the eastern coast of the colonies: “Benedict Arnold,
Benedict Arnold, Benedict Arnold.” His one act of treason altered his story,
changed his name.
Names aren’t magical. Being called a Benedict Arnold
doesn’t make you a traitor but its associations and inner meanings can change
how you are perceived by others and how you even see yourself. In the same way,
Jesus’ name isn’t some magical password of prayer, some mantra, or mystical “open
sesame” for the spiritual life. But it does have some powerful associations
that can affect your life deeply. I’d like to explore those today.
What
does prayer “in the name of Jesus” mean?
1.
To
pray in the name of Jesus is to understand that God can be trusted because God
has skin in the game.
To pray in the name of Jesus is to recognize what
Jesus has repeated so often in these last few chapters and throughout the
John’s Gospel, “the Father and I are one.” So to pray in the name of Jesus has
everything to do with who Jesus is and who God is. Jesus says in vs. 26, “One
day you will pray in my name” and claims to speak “plainly of the Father.” To pray in the name of Jesus is to
confess that God has skin in the game; that in Jesus we see God in action, God at
work, God spoken and God revealed. It means that we can know to whom we are
praying and how to pray. To pray in the
name of Jesus is to acknowledge that Jesus is Lord and that the Father is
teaching us through Jesus how to pray.
This
brings us to that inscrutable mystery that plagues pastors and church-goers
alike – the Trinity – that there is one God in three persons! Now when you hear
the word “Trinity” maybe your response is “AHHHHHHHHH!” Or maybe you hear the
word “Trinity” like I hear my mechanic talk about what’s wrong with my car – “so
your exhaust manifold is leaking due to a busted gasket, wah wah wah wah.” Just
fix it, I say to myself, I don’t need to understand it.” But prayer is the
perfect context in which to discuss and understand this difficult truth because
it has everything to do with how we pray, why we pray, what we should pray for,
and whom we pray to.
Praying in the name of Jesus means that the Father
and the Son are one and that God the Father reveals himself bodily in Jesus. So
what Jesus tells us of the Father is trustworthy and true. What one wills and
does, the other wills and does – this is further added to by Jesus who says the
Spirit only says what Jesus speaks, vs. 16:14. How does this affect how we view
God? Well, in vs. 26 Jesus says, “I do not say to you that I will ask the
Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you,”. So Jesus does not placate the Father or do
something that the Spirit refuses to do. So Jesus is claiming more than being
the messiah but saying that he has a unique relationship with the Father who
loves us. Trinitarian prayer stresses that all who God is expressed in all that
God does. So Jesus doesn’t have to mediate for us in the sense of shielding us
from a God who wants something for us other than salvation. I continually
struggle with a bad Trinitarian theology in which I ask Jesus to go and speak
to the scary God for me. Jesus’ own words are not, “I change God’s mind toward
sinful human beings” or “don’t worry, he’s grumpy right now but I’ll put in a
good for you”; rather Jesus says, “Ask in my name and you are talking to God, I
am God and the Father loves you like I do.
More than that, however, it also means that Jesus is
uniquely qualified to teach us what to pray for. To pray in the name of Jesus
is to know what God wants. What God want us to pray for – is to pray about what
Jesus said and did. Jesus is God’s answer to the riddle about God’s will. Too
many evangelicals agonize over God’s supposedly secret, personal plan for their
lives. Take heart – God’s will is Jesus Christ, God’s will with skin.
2.
To
pray in the name of Jesus is to pray knowing that we have skin in the game.
I recently heard a marvelous story about a
four-year-old child who awoke one night frightened, convinced that in the
darkness there were monsters hiding in the closet. Alone, she ran panicked to
her parent’s bedroom. Her mother calmed her down and, taking her by the hand,
led her back to her own room where she turned on the light and reassured the
child saying, “You needn’t be afraid, you are not alone here. God is in the
room with you.” The child replied: “I know that God is here, but I need someone
in this room who has some skin!”
To pray in the name of Jesus is to pray to the God
who came and took on flesh, presence, and action. But the incarnation, God
taking on flesh, is not simply a thirty-three year experiment by God in history
but God’s continued bodily work in the world. God still has skin in the game,
human skin, powered by His Spirit – the church. We are, Paul tells, the Body of
Christ. We are God’s skin.
To pray in the name of Jesus therefore is not some desperate
need to have a go between to save us from an angry God. To pray in the name of
Jesus is to recognize that we are part of God’s concrete, enfleshed presence
and plan to redeem and heal the earth and all that is in it. This is what it
means to pray as a Christian rather than as a theist. Both believe in God but a
theist prays to a distant God in heaven. A Christian prays to a God who brings
“heaven to earth.” To pray in the name
of Jesus is to recognize that the answer to prayer is now partially dependent
upon being what we pray for. So when we finish a prayer “in the name of
Jesus” we are not only asking God in heaven to act. We are also charging
ourselves as the Body of Christ by the power of the Spirit with some
responsibility for that action. To pray as a Christian, in other words, demands
concrete involvement or it is not Christian prayer. To pray as a Christian is
to demand God’s intervention but also our own. If my friend is sick and I pray
that she gets better, but do not drive her to see the doctor, or visit her, I
have prayed as a theist, not as a Christian. I have not given any flesh or skin
to my prayer. This is the point of James who asks, “If a brother or sister is
naked and lacks daily food, 16and one of you says to them, “Go in
peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily
needs, what is the good of that?” There is always a politic to prayer, there is
always some necessary action for it to be prayer “in the name of Jesus.”
There is an Ingmar Berman movie called “The
Serpent’s Egg” which powerfully illustrates my point. A priest has just
finished presiding over a mass and is taking off his clerical robe when a woman
confronts him. Middle-aged, needy, lonely, and suffering from a burdensome view
of God she sobs to the priest, “I’m so alone, Father, nobody loves me! God is
so far away! I don’t think he could love me anyway. Not the way I am!
Everything is dark for me!” At first, the priest is more irritated than
compassionate, but he finally says to the woman: “Kneel down and I will bless
you. God seems far away. He cannot touch you right now, I know that, but I am
going to put my hands on your head and touch you – to let you know that you are
not alone, not unlovable, not in the darkness. God is here and God does love
you. When I touch, God will touch you.” This is someone praying as a Christian,
praying in the name of Jesus. This is someone who understands that we are God’s
skin – that we have skin in the game.
3.
To
pray in the name of Jesus is to pray by the power of the Spirit who rose Jesus from the dead.
In other words, to pray in the name of Jesus is to
pray knowing that God has already acted and won in the death and resurrection
of Jesus. To pray in the name of Jesus means that there is no such thing as a
bad or wrong prayer but that all prayer is animated, worked with, empowered by
God. When we pray in the name of Jesus we recognize that we are joining God in
his work and he is not worried. I’m not suggesting that there’s not heart ache
in this life nor that prayer can’t be vexing as we struggle to understand why
some are answered and some seem not to be answered. I’m simply saying that in
the end, heart ache doesn’t win because Jesus rose from the dead. And that same
Spirit who rose Jesus from the dead, Jesus says in chapter 16, will guide and
direct us. Friends, because God has skin in the game – God has already won and
we can join him in his work. So to pray “in
the name of Jesus” - to end your prayer with that phrase - is not some sort of
divine magic but to remind yourself that you need not worry about life being
redeemed, you are simply waiting and working with the God who will make it so.
