Rogate, 2023

Rev. Thomas Van Hemert

St. John 16:23b-30

Rogate (Thanks to Rev. Trae Fistler for a good portion of this sermon)

May 14, 2023

In the name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit.

This is the first Sunday after Easter whose Latin name doesn’t come from the Introit. It comes from Jesus’ words in the Gospel. The Latin word for ask. Rogate.

The Gospel reading takes place on Maundy Thursday in the upper room. Jesus is giving instruction and comfort to His disciples. Jesus repeats the word Rogate, that is, ask/pray because He wished to console His disciples before leaving them. Soon He would be handed over to suffer and die. But He also wants to comfort us when He departed at His ascension, which is observed and celebrated this upcoming Thursday. He consoles us and promises that He will return and be with us. He consoles His disciples and us, “I will go before you to prepare a place for you.”

The text of the Gospel reading are the last words of our Lord’s farewell address to His disciples. He had much to say on the evening before He went to the cross. He prayed for His church and for Him to be “glorified.”  He prayed for His church and prepared for His betrayal, arrest, suffering, and horrific death.

He had already warned His disciples about the anxiety, persecution, and sorrow that would burden them all after His departure. But He promised His comfort and support.  He promised the Holy Spirit to help them face the challenges that would soon come their way. And at the end of His farewell, He encouraged them to pray.

Then He spoke of His heavenly Father: “In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you.”

Jesus spoke of His Father's desire to hear our words and thoughts as we pray to Him.  Jesus' words go beyond prayer and tell us of the attitude God the Father has for us.  His words remind us of the prayer He taught us:  "Our Father who art in heaven....” The opening words of the Lord's Prayer are so familiar to us that we often speak them on auto-pilot.  We don't think about what it means that Jesus instructs us to call His Father our Father.   

But it truly is marvelous thing it is that we not only have the privilege of speaking to almighty, everlasting God, but Jesus instructs us to address Him as our Father. We call His Father our Father by divine right! “God the Father” is not just a name or title.  It is His true nature and He loves His children. We are children of the Heavenly Father, as the hymn sings.

He is the perfect Father – the one who loves, cherishes, and cares for us. He is the Father Who demonstrated divine, flawless love for us by sending His Son into the world to die our death – that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. 

Our Father in heaven wants to hear from us. He wants to hear from His children, always. He wants us to share our words, thoughts, and even feelings with Him. He wants us to share our sorrows, griefs, but also our joys and our happiness. How can this be?  He is Lord over all things visible and invisible. He rules over both the physical universe and the spiritual realm. The earth and known universe seem vast to us, but to God it’s a speck. God is eternal (without beginning and without end); immutable, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, holy, just, faithful, merciful, gracious – and God is love.

God is holy. We are not. He created a perfect universe. And we by the sin of our first parents and even the sins we commit daily have corrupted God’s creation. And yet, despite this, God’s holiness brings blessings.

He blesses us, even though it would make perfect sense and even though God would be perfectly just in punishing us for all we’ve done to spoil His creation. Still, He blesses us. Jesus has saved us. He has purchased and won us with a terrible cost in perfect love. Therefore, He instructs us sinful human beings to address the holy and divine being—His Father—as our Father.

He answered the disciples with this statement, "Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He will give it to you” (v.23). When Jesus instructs us to pray in His name, we remember whose name this is. This is the name of the Son of God who took on human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary. This is the name of the One who came to “fulfill” all of the Law and the Prophets.

This is the name of the One who submitted to false accusations, arrest, trial, torture, and a shameful death on a cross.  This is the name of the One who rose to life, destroying death and opening the grave. This is the name of the One who ascended to heaven and now rules all things. This is the name of the One who promised to return to “raise us and all the dead and give eternal life to all who believe in His name.

Jesus tell us to pray. It’s commanded. Like unto the command to sing, He tells us to pray and to pray in His name. Praying in Jesus' name is the foundation of all prayer. It anchors prayer in the salvation Jesus earned with His life and death. Since the power of prayer resides in Jesus' name, it does not reside in the prayer itself or in individuals. 

We need not worry about making our prayers eloquent or lengthy. We need not be concerned about the exact form of our prayer.  We need not fear about being worthy to pray. The worthiness of our prayer resides only in Jesus Christ. 

Praying in Jesus' name does not require us to say precise, specific words. It simply means we have trust in Jesus Christ. Prayer is a gift the Holy Spirit gives us at the same time that He works saving faith in us. Praying in Jesus' name also means that God hears our prayers because of Christ, for the sake of Christ, our only Mediator before God.

Those who do not have faith cannot pray. If they do not repent and trust Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins and salvation, then they are not praying in the name of Jesus. They are praying into emptiness, into a void. It would be like speaking into an empty room. Their prayer may be eloquent, but no one would hear it.

On the other hand, those who believe in Jesus need not be eloquent.  We don't have to worry if we’ll get the words precisely right.  Just as a loving parent will listen to the silly words of a toddler, who can’t even pronounce the words properly, so also God the Father loves to listen to those who trust in Jesus.

Because our sins have been washed away and Christ has covered us in His righteousness, our thoughts, words, and feelings are precious to God no matter how unpolished they might be. We have the same promise the Holy Spirit gave to the Apostle Paul. “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:26-27).

Here the Holy Spirit promises to take even our most awkward words and thoughts and transform them into perfection as He intercedes for us. The Holy Spirit knows what is on our mind and He will convert our prayers into a perfect heavenly language that our little words cannot even express.

From the simplicity of a young child’s prayer to the confusion of the Alzheimer's patient in a nursing home, the Holy Spirit will make them all into heavenly masterpieces. And the wonderful thing about the gift of prayer is that it lasts forever.

When we pass away from this earth, our souls will be with Jesus in a place He calls “paradise.”  There we’ll pray in His very presence. No longer in faith because our faith will have been realized. When the last day comes, God will raise our bodies to immortality and we will be body and soul once again.  Then we will gather around the eternal throne and pray to our heavenly Father in pure joy and peace. There we’ll communicate with God and we’ll see Him face to face forever and experience forever His perfect love.

In +Jesus’ name.