The Lord Jesus teaches you to pray at all times — day and night, throughout your life — and not to lose heart. Not as a desperate last resort, but with the unwavering confidence of a little child, knowing and trusting that your prayer is heard and will be answered by your Father in heaven.
Such prayer is the voice of faith, which looks to the Lord your God and expects good things from Him. Such faith rests upon His Word and promise in Christ Jesus and boldly calls upon His Name. And whoever thus calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved. Believe that is so, and pray.
It is to catechize you in such faith and prayer that your dear Lord Jesus tells this Parable of the Widow and the Judge. It’s one of His great stories. You can picture the scene, the woman in dire straits, in desperate need of justice, probably in danger of losing whatever little property she has. She needs someone to help her, to contend for her, to fight for her and not take advantage of her.
Out of necessity that poor widow goes to that hardhearted judge, though he has no regard for God or man. He is an unrighteous judge who acts only in his own self-interest. He looks with contempt on the widow; he does not want to bother with her, he has no interest in helping her, and so he does his best to ignore her. Only, she won’t stop asking for his help, because she has no choice, no one else to ask. And her persistence finally wears him down, to the point that he relents and gives her justice, not because he cares, and not because it is good and right, but just to get her off his back.
That’s the picture Jesus paints of constant prayer — that you should confidently call on the Name of the Lord who loves to hear and answer His elect, who grants them justice and does it quickly.
It’s interesting how closely this Parable lines up with the story of Jacob, who wrestled through the night with that “Man” who turns out to be the Lord. You can imagine that situation, too. He has basically had to flee from his Uncle Laban, who has become envious and jealous of the blessings God has bestowed upon his nephew. Despite Jacob’s personal faults and shortcomings, the Lord has been with him according to His promise, and Jacob has prospered in his years with Laban. But now he is returning to the scene of his crime, as it were — to the brother he deceived and swindled, who was previously determined to kill him. So Jacob doesn’t know what will happen.
He does what he can to hedge his bets. He hopes for the best and prepares for the worst. He sends his wives and his children and all his worldly possessions across the stream. And then, through the long dark night, he is left alone. I’m guessing that all of you have had nights like that, when everything is falling apart, crashing down around your ears, and everyone else has gone away, or so it seems and feels. In the darkness you are all alone. And perhaps you have also spent such nights wrestling with the Lord, with cries and tears and groaning too deep for words, looking for some help, some comfort, some peace and rest, a blessing in the midst of danger and heartache.
The “Man” comes and wrestles with Jacob. That is the key. Jacob refuses to let go of Him — but does anybody really think that God the Lord could not get away? God has come to wrestle with Jacob, and God holds on to him. He teaches Jacob how to pray. And so does He also teach you.
Jacob finally lets go when he receives the blessing he has sought. That’s what he’s after when he asks for the “Man’s” Name. For it is by and with His Name that Yahweh blesses His people, as in the Benediction, whereby Aaron and his sons bless the other sons of Jacob with the Name of the Lord. So in this case, the Lord blesses Jacob with His Name; and He gives to him a new name.
This is how you should pray, as well, calling upon the Name of the Lord and refusing to let go until He lays His Name upon you and blesses you with His Name. So has He taught you, invited you, and commanded you to call upon His Name in every trouble and temptation, to pray, praise, and give thanks at all times and in all places. And of course, you are given to seek and receive the blessing of His Name especially in the Liturgy of His Gospel, in His own Word and Sacraments.
But you do not know how to pray as you should. And you do not pray as you should, because of your weakness, because of your sinful doubts and fears and lack of faith. You do not listen to the Word of God, you do not trust it, and so you are too timid or too proud to pray. Of yourself, left to yourself, that is how it is. You do not listen to the Lord, and you do not call upon His Name.
But in His tender mercy and compassion, in His deep love for you, the Lord does for you what He once did for Jacob. He prevails with you and for you. He comes to wrestle with you, and He strives with you, and He teaches you how to pray. Not only that, but He Himself prays for you. Your dear Lord Jesus Christ, your merciful and great High Priest, ever lives to intercede for you. And the Holy Spirit also helps you in your weakness, He prays and intercedes for you at all times.
Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit pray and intercede for you; and they also teach you to pray, first of all by calling you to repentance and to faith in the Gospel, and then also by giving you the very Words with which to pray: “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. . . .”
“When you pray, say this.” So the Lord Jesus has instructed you with reference to the Our Father. Not to restrict you, but to supply you and support you. He puts these Words upon your lips and in your mouth, where you would otherwise have no right words and nothing to say. He thereby gives you the Wisdom of God and the Spirit of God. Consequently, during those long dark nights when everyone else has gone away, and everything is in danger, and you are threatened and afraid and seemingly all by yourself — you open up your mouth, and out come these Words of Christ.
In your Holy Baptism this Lord Jesus Christ has given you His Name. The Lord renamed Jacob, “Israel.” The Lord has renamed you, as well, with the very Name of God, the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the Name of Christ Jesus. So you bear His Name. He has blessed you. He has given you His Spirit and made you a dear child of His own God and Father.
“Do you not know that all of you who are baptized into Christ are sons of God in Christ?” So, God is your Father. You don’t have to be afraid of Him. You don’t have to bribe or bargain with Him. You are His child, He is your Dad. So, call upon His Name, the Name which He has given you.
That’s how you pray the Our Father. It is in virtue of your Holy Baptism, whereby He has given you the new birth of water and the Spirit. You thus share in the Sonship of Christ Jesus, so that His God and Father is your God and Father. When you open up your mouth and pray the Words that Christ Himself has given you, and when you open up your mouth to pray from the heart of faith that Christ has worked in you by His Word and Holy Spirit — and when that Spirit of Christ Jesus prays in you and with you — what your Father in heaven hears is Jesus, His beloved Son.
Will the Son of Man find faith when He comes upon the earth? Indeed He does, because He has first of all established such faith and faithfulness in Himself, in His own Flesh and Blood, for you and all the children of man, for widows and orphans in distress, once and forever. And now by His Word and Holy Spirit He calls you to fear, love, and trust in Him, to be raised up and live in Him.
He brings you into that faith and life by His Cross, by way of your Baptism, and thereafter by His preaching and catechesis. He puts you to death and raises you to life, He wounds you in order to heal you. His Cross thus brings you to repentance. His Cross brings you to faith. And so by His Cross He brings you into His own ongoing prayer and intercession, which arises to His Father in His Resurrection from the dead. As He rises from the earth and enters into heaven, as He sits at the Right Hand of the Father, so does your prayer ascend to the Father in heaven. For Christ Jesus Himself is your Prayer, and you are heard and answered as surely as He lives and reigns forever.
The fact is that, by His Cross and Passion, He has wrestled with God and prevailed on your behalf. Think of His agony in the Garden, how He prays with great drops of blood falling from His brow. “Father, if it be possible, take this Cup from Me; yet, not My will but Thine be done.”
He calls upon the Father there in the Garden, as St. Mark tells us, with the very words that you are given to pray by the Holy Spirit: “Abba! Father!” For there in the Garden of Gethsemane He has taken your place through that long dark night of the soul on the far side of the river, with family and friends far away, falling asleep, everything stripped away, and only His Father to call upon.
And it seems as though His Father will not help Him but destroy Him, hand Him over to the Cross, and leave Him to suffer and die in such brutal agony, bearing the sins of the entire world in His beaten, bruised, and battered Body. It is the Lord Jesus Christ, the promised Seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose hip is put out of joint; for His own Cross and Passion were already in view as He wrestled with Jacob at Penuel. And in that Hour, it is for you that He strives and wrestles.
It is in this way that God gives justice to His elect. It is by this way and means that He justifies you and declares you righteous. It is in this way that He vindicates you in the face of all your enemies — by handing over His Son, Christ Jesus, to the Cross — and then by raising Him from the dead.
So, let’s think again about that widow and that judge. Although it may seem obvious that the judge is somehow supposed to represent God, and that the widow represents you, it is not you who have been so persistent. It is God who has been so persistent in bringing you from your unrighteousness to faith, in breaking your heart of stone and granting you a heart of flesh, and in converting you from someone who cares for neither God nor man to someone who loves God and your neighbor.
It is Christ Jesus who has accomplished all of this for you, and it is Christ Jesus who now works such faith and prayer in you. By His Cross and in His Resurrection He teaches you to live and to pray as He does. He strives and wrestles with you through the night, and He prevails upon you, to bring you to repentance and faith. And in this way, by the way of His Cross, He teaches you to pray in the sure and certain hope and confidence of His Resurrection.
Your suffering under the Cross prompts you to pray in this way. It reduces you to nothing but the one hope that you have had all along, which is your God and Father in Christ Jesus and His Word and promise; so that, in suffering you are brought into hope, to call upon the Name of the Lord, to rely upon His Word and Holy Spirit. It is like ancient Israel in the wilderness, when God let them go hungry, and then He opened His hand to feed them. And again, it is like Israel in the Land of Canaan, which God gave them as He promised. Over and over again the people abandoned the Lord and turned away from Him to other gods; so the Lord, in His mercy and love, would send enemies to discipline the people, to call and bring them to repentance; then they would call upon His Name for deliverance, and He would hear and answer and send the judges to rescue them.
So does the Lord your God likewise discipline you, as a father disciplines the son whom he loves. He lays the Cross upon you, to put you to death and raise you to life; not to destroy you, though it may feel that way at times, but that you would open up your mouth and call upon His Name.
And as you are united with Christ Jesus in His Cross and Resurrection by your Holy Baptism in His Name, so is He both your Prayer and your Father’s Answer to your prayer. He is God’s “Yes” and “Amen” to your every need, and to each and all of those Petitions He has taught you to pray.
It is in Christ Jesus, the beloved Son, that God is your own dear Father in heaven. It is in Him that God’s holy Name has been given to you. It is in Him that God’s Kingdom comes to you, and in Him that God’s good and gracious Will is done for you, unto everlasting Life and Salvation. It is in Christ Jesus that you are fed with daily bread for this body and life and for the Resurrection. It is by Him that your trespasses are forgiven; that you are protected from all trials and temptations; and that you are delivered from the old evil foe and from every evil of body and soul. And so it is that, in and with Him, you shall at last be raised up from this valley of death to your Father in heaven, as surely as He is risen from the dead and lives forever. “Amen! Amen!” It shall be so!
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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