The life of Jesus was centered in prayer. At almost every important event in the Gospel of Luke we find Jesus praying. He prays at his baptism and when he is choosing the disciples. We find Jesus praying before he teaches and he prays before Peter’s confession. He proclaims that the temple in Jerusalem is to be a House of Prayer.
Luke wants us to see that prayer is a source of strength for Jesus and by extension for us, too. Prayer is not a magical action that helps us avoid the hard parts of life. Rather, prayer, the kind that is willing to tell the truth to God, is messy. It does not shy away from life’s toughest moments. In fact, it is in those difficult times when prayer becomes a present reality.
The prayers we whisper in the middle of the night are probably the most honest. I believe that God hears all that we say but I suspect that God pays more attention to you and me when there is no one else listening.
I was on a hospital visit to see a member of the church. The one I was there to check on was out of the room for physical therapy. I took out one of my cards and began to write a note. As I was writing I heard a patient on the other side of the curtain praying, “Please. Please God, please, help me.”
Our joys are as diverse as the human race but we are united by grief and pain. In that difficult and sorrowful place there are no distinctions, as Brennan Manning writes, “Between the powerful and powerless, educated and illiterate, billionaires and bag ladies, high tech geeks and low tech nerds, males and females, the circus and the sanctuary.”
By paying attention to the prayers of Jesus and his own midnight worries we will discover that God is always present, even in times of despair. Every one of us will find moments when it seems as though all hell has been loosed against us.
The message that Jesus came to proclaim, the good news that he has to share, is that even in the middle of the night God is with us. The Apostle Paul teaches us that when the pain is too great, when we cannot find anything to say, the Spirit of God will intercede with “groans too deep for words,” filling in the silence with the very grace of God’s presence.
How does one begin a prayer like this? Perhaps the only word necessary is “Help.”
Grace and peace to you,
