PRAYER IS FOUNDATIONAL
Today I am picking up where I left off last week in my reflections about picking up our daily crosses.
Some crosses seem catastrophic and that is what we most often think of when we think of Jesus and His crucifixion. What starts out like any other day can suddenly hand us a cross that is extremely heavy. We are going about our day and suddenly we are like Simon of Cyrene. We are handed a heavy cross we never expected.
How do we carry and rise up from our crosses when they grip us with fear? How do we break from the impression that these crosses are to be feared and that the closer we get to Jesus, the more these fearful crosses may come? In the crucifixion of Jesus, I think it helps to think of the lessons Jesus taught in His ministry and how He lived them out in the cross. I think the most powerful message is the message of hope that was rooted in many of the things He did and said so let’s focus on some foundational teachings of Jesus.
Prayer is foundational to all things. Jesus always prayed so we know He was very close to the Father. We know that we are all capable of that closeness because Jesus emptied Himself of His Divinity so He could be like us. The closeness Jesus had was not because He was the second person of the Trinity. He emptied Himself of that. His closeness came from prayer. . Like Him we can experience the growth in prayer and in relationship with the Father. We are, in fact, all called to do that. “This attitude you should have is the one that Christ Jesus had: He always had the nature of God, but He did not think that by force He should try to remain equal with God. Instead of this, of His own free will He gave up all He had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness. He was humbled and walked the path of obedience all the way to death—His death on the cross.” (Phil 2:5-8). Herein lies our hope. We can model Jesus in prayer and by that be closer to God, the Father. That closeness will give us great trust and courage. United to Jesus as a child of the Father, we are assured that we will always be taken care of.
But that closeness also ended in a cross! Suddenly our hope shrivels and we become fearful.
Given we know that Jesus emptied Himself to be like us and it is prayer that brought Him closer to God, we can understand that through prayer He came to know His mission was to conquer death. He couldn’t conquer an enemy without facing it and wrestling with it. He eventually knew the cross was coming. “Then Jesus began to teach His disciples: ‘The Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law. He will be put to death, but three days later He will rise to life.’ He made this very clear to them. So Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But Jesus turned around, looked at His disciples, and rebuked Peter. ‘Get away from Me Satan,’ he said. ‘Your thoughts don’t come from God but from human nature.” (Mark 8:31-33). If He emptied Himself of His Divinity, He could only have known what His mission was and what was coming through a deep relationship with God through prayer. He emptied Himself of His Divinity so if He was not thinking like a man, it was because He had a deep union with God the Father. When you are in union with God and you want something badly enough your heart is filled up with love and you don’t run from the cross. There is a powerful purpose tied up in it. Again, when we understand that our purpose is tied up in the cross, we can focus on the love that is foundational and we can have hope. Suddenly the cross of being hung up on the phone trying to straighten out a medical bill for our spouse isn’t seen through the lens of victimhood and why me. It is seen through the lens of love and we have this cross because of the gift of our spouse. We are straightening it out for their good. Love is central. Is it pleasant? More than likely not, but we wouldn’t ever think to abandon it out of love.
But there is more.
Jesus said give thanks, pray and believe. Another strong message of the power of hope. “For this reason I tell you: when you pray and ask for something, believe that you have received it, and you will be given whatever you ask for. And when you stand and pray forgive anything you may have against anyone so that your father in heaven will forgive the wrongs you have done” (Mark 11:24-25). In raising up Lazarus, Jesus started out His prayer with thanksgiving that His Father had heard His petition. “Jesus looked up and said, ‘I thank you, Father, that you listen to me. I know that you always listen to you but I say this for the sake of the people here, so that they will believe that you sent me” (Luke 11:41-42). He was thankful ahead of time that His prayer would be answered just as it always had been. He had no reason to believe that would ever be any different. He had no reason to ever start out prayers of petition without ever thinking His prayers would not be answered. The same is true for us.
Jesus gave us the formula that would get us through any difficulty. Pray always so as to be close to God the Father, be thankful, have hope, trust and believe. We know in our mission/vocation, it will be hard, but we know that “in all things God works for good with those who love Him, those whom He has called according to His purpose” (Rom 8:28). The deeper our prayer life, the more at peace we will have be because of this truth.
So how did Jesus prayer life manifest itself at the time of His crucifixion? We will cover that next week.
PRAYERFULLY REFLECT ON THE FOLLOWING:.
Are there crosses in your life now that you can embrace by seeing your vocation and purpose being tied up in them? Can you see the love that is central so as to help you carry the burden?
Do you make it a practice to thank God in advance for answering your prayers? Do you live as if they have already been answered or do you live in fear and worry?
Jesus emptied Himself of His Divinity so He could share in our humanity. As part of our humanity, He showed us that when we empty ourselves of our humanity, He can fill us with His Divinity. It is there that the union occurs. How can you improve your prayer life so that your union with God may grow?
Prayerfully reflect on the scriptures cited above and bring in any cross you may be carrying currently. Talk to Jesus about these.
Prayerfully reflect on some scripture passages that refer to Jesus praying. Here are some, but there are many more: MATT 14:23, LUKE 9:18, LUKE 9:28 and John 11: 41-42.