Over the past few months we have considered Martin Luther’s counsel regarding prayer. In 1535, he wrote a booklet on the topic. This month we conclude with a final bit of Luther’s profound and practical advice. When you pray, Luther advises, pray in Jesus’ name.
This would seem the most obvious advice in the world. Yet often we do otherwise.
Our Catholic friends sometimes pray to a favorite saint. Our Orthodox friends sometimes hire their praying out: a mass may be prayed in the name of a donor, for example, in order to curry spiritual favor. In Evangelical circles we have our idiosyncrasies, too. We often pray to Jesus and “in Your name” – rather than to God the Father and in the name of Jesus, as our Lord himself regularly advised. This sort of praying has always seemed to me, not so much wrong exactly, as awkward and self-conscious – like a conversation between acquaintances who can’t quite remember one another’s identity.
Luther advised praying in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. “Christ’s words, ‘in My name,’ are the prime factor and the foundation on which prayer is to stand and rest” (WLS 3434).
It turns out that language is important – even in the details. The words that emerge from our mouths, often enough, reflect something going on in our hearts and heads. So what is suggested by this kind of language: addressing God the Father “…in Jesus’ name“?
In Jesus’ name we stand in solidarity with the whole broad Body of Christ, for one thing. In Jesus’ name it is difficult to pray individualistically. When we pray in Jesus’ name we identify with our Lord himself – his Body, his people, and his mission in the world. “I pray in the name of my Lord Jesus Christ together with all thy saints and Christians on earth,” Luther wrote in his little booklet. “Never think that you are kneeling or standing alone, rather think that the whole of Christendom, all devout Christians, are standing there beside you….” We are no longer, simply, Lutherans, or Americans, or men or women, or young or old, when we pray in Jesus’ name. In Jesus’ name we identify with the entire Christian family.
In Jesus’ name we stand in solidarity with the wonderful, world-wide mission of God, as well. Lutherans and Americans will, no doubt, want to pray about Lutheran and American concerns from time to time. But if they continue to pray in Jesus’ name they will not be content with Lutheran and American concerns alone. When we pray in Jesus’ name we identify with his mission everywhere. Prayer in Jesus’ name is itself, in a way, an act of missionary commitment.
Most importantly, when we pray in Jesus’ name we lay aside our own name and identity. We identify with the name, and identity, and mission of Another.
One of my very favorite spiritual songs goes like this:
I am covered over with the robe of righteousness that Jesus gives to me.
I am covered over with the precious blood of Jesus and he lives in me.
What a joy it is to know the Heavenly Father loves me so – he gives to me, my Jesus!
And when he looks at me, he sees not what I used to be, but he sees Jesus.
We come to the Father in the name of the Son: the whole heart of our Christian faith is wrapped into this little prayerful interchange. We come as daughters. We come as children. We come to “Abba,” as dear ones at the Father’s knee (cf. Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6). We come to him in Jesus’ name.
So you see how this language works and how it may be important. We come to the Father as his children, in the name of his One and Only Son. We have nothing in our hand, but our identification with Jesus. We have no merit, no entrée, no possibility of any sort whatsoever, except for our union with that One who gives himself for us. And then! – we may enter into the throne room of God, we may stand before the Creator Almighty, and we are heard and received as his daughters and sons.
This is the regular pattern that we find in the New Testament (e.g., John 15:16, Jn 16:23, etc.). But it is not the only pattern. When the disciples asked Jesus “how to pray,” he answered with an outline for prayer that nowhere includes “in Jesus’ name” specifically (cf., Luke 11:2-4). So we shouldn’t get too rigid about this language, I suppose.
Yet we needn’t wonder what to say, either – like we sometimes do in a crowded room when we see an old friend but can’t quite remember what to call him. When you kneel in your room to pray, you may expect to meet the Father Almighty. And by Jesus’ grace and invitation, you may come before him as his child. In Jesus’ name.