Listen to Sermon
Pastor Tom Johnson, December 17, 2017
Our Scripture calls us to pray without ceasing. God wants us to have an unbroken connection with him. He wants his people to constantly pray—to pray always rejoicing and to pray giving thanks in all circumstances. We are to wake up with thanksgiving for a new day, to make our day straight for the way of the Lord during the day covering it with prayer, to let our prayers ascend before the Lord as incense and the evening sacrifice, and then prayerfully commend our bodies and spirits and all things to God as we lie down to sleep. Never stopping. No intermissions. No breaks. Unceasing prayer every day, every hour, and every moment awake or asleep.
It may seem that God wants us to drop out of school, quit our jobs, end our retirement and join a monastic order. You will remember, that’s what Martin Luther did. The call to prayer started at 3 a.m. and ended at midnight every day. This full day of prayer with sisters and brothers in Christ is powerful. I hope you have had the experience on a retreat or pilgrimage to devote your day to prayer. It is powerful. It is restful. And it releases a flood of peace.This is a call to unceasing prayer—prayer that continually flows from the mouths and hearts of God’s people. You may say, “I don’t have time for that kind of prayer.” Martin Luther is famous for saying, “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours of my day in prayer.” He was too busy not to pray.
This is not simply a call to make more time to pray, however. It is a call to see the Christian life itself as a life of prayer—in all its forms. The Bible itself defines prayer very broadly using words like: Entreat, call, cry out, seek, inquire, ask, beseech, implore, wait on, hope, search, worship, praise, give thanks, rejoice, petition, confess, devote, commune, adore, intercede, lie prostrate, kneel, raise hands and many more. Our posture, the inclination of our hearts, our words, and our actions are all called to prayerful devotion. Our whole being is to turn toward God. Our lives are to flow from our relationship with him, from him, and back to him. “For from him and through him and for him are all things” (Rom 11:36). It is not about making more time for God but making more room for him in our hearts. It’s about being connected to God—to be in relationship with God. That is not a scheduling issue. That is an issue of the heart. It is exactly what John the Baptist was called to do—to be a voice crying out to people to come into the Light of Christ, to make way for the Lord as he comes into the world and into our lives, to turn from self-centeredness and worldliness to Kingdom-centered and godly lives.
The alternative is to feel disconnected to God. We may sometimes feel that he is absent. Or we become Sunday morning Christians and then agnostics or atheists for the rest of the week. The real tragedy is when we wander off God’s prayerful path. We forget our baptismal identity as children of God. We stray from the light of Christ into the shadows and what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls “the agony of prayerlessness.” We cease praying. We start worrying. We stop trusting. We fill up with anxiety. We yield to the demands of this world. We become paralyzed by fear. We fall into the snare of sin. We are held captive by its power and ruled by the agony of prayerlessness.
Last week, I heard Amy Harkness’ niece Victoria tell a story about Amy’s father, Victoria’s grandfather. She asked him as he was nearing death and confined to his bed if he still prayed. “Of course,” he said, “I have to,” “But it’s not so much about talking as it is knowing the presence of God with me.” Prayer had become for him less about making requests and saying prayers as it did living in the light of Christ’s presence. It had become more about being in relationship with his Heavenly Father. Prayer may not change God. But it transforms us. And when we broaden our understanding of prayer—when we deepen our vision of a prayer-filled life, we will not want to cease praying. God is not calling for us to live under the burden of prayer but to lift our burdens through the gift of prayer.
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.” It is an invitation to open ourselves up to the rich and abiding presence of God. God wants us to live in relationship to him always. He calls us to be forever connected to him. In a healthy relationship, we can express the full spectrum of our emotions. We are free to share the ups and the downs of life—in every stage of life. And we will never overwhelm or burden God. He calls us to cast all our cares and anxieties upon him because he cares for us (1 Pet 5:7). When we wake up we can open our eyes to the Kingdom’s presence and our lips to declare God’s praise. When we walk we can talk with God. We can think about our family and friends during the day but also lift them up in prayer. We can pray for our coworkers as we pass them in the hallway or go to that next appointment. We can pray for our communities, our city, our nation, and this world as we read or hear the daily news. Even if it is simply the refrain, “Lord, have mercy.” We can remind ourselves moment by moment that our lives are lived in the face of God who smiles over us and whose countenance radiates our lives with the light of Christ. There is nothing we do or say that cannot be immersed or sprinkled with the unceasing current of the Holy Spirit that flows from our Baptism.
When Jesus endured the agony of the Cross he did not endure the agony of prayerlessness. He prayed some of his best prayers while giving his life for the sin of the world: “Forgive them Father, for they do not know what they are doing.” “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Praying, entreating, and interceding from the Cross of Calvary and then rising from the dead in triumph. And so he comes again to make all things new—to usher his presence into our lives—to an even deepening relationship—to even greater connectiveness. And so we pray, “Amen. Even so. Come, Lord Jesus!”
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