07. The Teaching and Practice of Jesus

The Teaching and Practice of Jesus No prayers and no teaching about prayer can be so important as the prayers and the teaching of Jesus Here, as everywhere in religion, He is the Master— with his incomparable union of simplicity and depth, serenity and earnestness; and nothing is more natural than that, “as he was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, ‘ Lord, teach us to pray’” (Luke 11:1).

It is of more than ordinary interest to ascertain precisely the words He used, as well as the manner and spirit of His prayer. Most of His recorded prayers are brief and striking, and we have every reason to believe that they faithfully represent not only His spirit, but His language. But the facts providentially forbid an idolatrous worship of the letter. The two versions of the Lord’s prayer (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4) and the three versions of the prayer in Gethsemane differ—very slightly indeed, but they do differ—from one another. Some­times, as in the word rendered by daily in the English version of the fourth petition of the Lord’s prayer, the difference rests upon the difficulty of translating the Aramaic original into adequate Greek; but all the differences cannot be so explained. The question, too, might with some justice be raised whether the idea of prayer being rewarded (Matthew 6:6) does not come from an age or circle in which the pure message of Jesus was somewhat colored by an externalism inherited from the ancient Jewish Church; or whether the story of the unjust judge, in which God is represented as “avenging His elect that cry unto Him day and night” (Luke 18:7) does not, like Revelation 6:10, bear traces of a later day than that of Jesus, when the church was exposed to persecution. The greatest difficulties naturally lie in the gospel of John. The general characterization of Jesus in that gospel is wonderful: in one sense, it is the truest of all the gospels, because it penetrates most pro­foundly into the inner nature of Jesus. But just because it has, with such sensitiveness, yet with such power and originality, assimilated His spirit, its language, though we can often feel sure that it breathes the very breath of Jesus, is often very obviously rather that of the writer himself than that of Jesus. To this statement, the prayers are no exception. Take, for example, the great intercessory prayer in John 17 : It is altogether probable that this prayer is, in every essential respect, the prayer then offered by Jesus. It has all the atmosphere of the last days, it contains the characteristic ideas of Jesus, it enables us to look deeper into His heart than perhaps any other of His recorded words do. Yet the writer’s hand is unmistakable. After the words, “Thou (the Father) gavest Him (the Son) authority over all flesh, that to all whom Thou hast given Him He should give eternal life,” (John 17:2) follows a definition, “and this is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the only true God, and Him whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.” This definition is extremely improbable in the course of a prayer. The improbability is heightened by the fact that Jesus, who is the speaker, would thus be made to refer to Himself by name, and even to add to this his quasi-official title “Christ.” There can be little doubt that this is a theological interpolation of the writer, suggested by the words “eternal life.” A similar motive seems to explain the reference in John 17:12 to the fulfilling of the Scripture. This is the language of apologetic rather than of prayer; least of all is it in the manner of Jesus. A similar criticism might be made of the prayer at the grave of Lazarus. “Father, I thank Thee, that Thou heardest me; and I know that Thou hearest me always.” (John 11:41 f.) This is quite in the manner of Jesus (Cf. Matthew 11:25), and it points to an unrecorded and probably silent prayer, such as Jesus seems to have been in the habit of offering before a miracle (Mark 7:34). But what of the words that follow? “But because of the multitude that standeth around I said it, that they might believe that Thou didst send me.” In other words, it was hardly a real prayer; it was offered simply to produce a certain impression on the multitude. It is hard to believe that such a motive ever dictated any prayer of Jesus. But, after all, most of these criticisms are unimportant, they do not touch the essence of Jesus’ prayer. The occasions on which Jesus is recorded to have prayed are very suggestive. They are nearly all connected with crises in His mission. But we must not be misled by their relative infrequency. His dying prayer, Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit, was no doubt the prayer of all His life. He said nothing but what He had heard from the Father, He did nothing but what He had seen the Father do. His whole public ministry was rooted and grounded in private prayer. “Every day He was teaching in the temple, and every night He went out”—no doubt to pray (Luke 22:39 f.) — “and lodged in the mount” (Luke 21:37). Could the teaching by day have been so brave and true if He had not lodged by night in the mount?

It is striking that He is often recorded to have spent the night in prayer after a day with the multi­tude. For example, in the morning of the day after He had “healed many that were sick with divers diseases . . . in the morning, a great while before day, He rose up and went out and departed into a desert place, and there prayed.” (Mark 1:34 f.) The motives for prayer at such times may have been very various: the need to renew the strength which had gone out of Him, the need of the eloquent silence after the noisy din of the crowd, the need of gathering His soul to­gether before facing the unknown day. In prayer He won new strength and confidence “to preach the good news of the Kingdom of God to other cities also.” He may also have felt the need of fortifying His soul against the false Messianic hopes of the people; for, after sending away the multitudes whom He had fed and who would gladly have made Him King (John 6:15), He went up into the mountain apart to pray (Matthew 14:23. Cf. Luke 5:15-16, when the report went abroad concerning Him and His marvelous cures.).

After healing in the synagogue on the Sabbath day the man with the withered hand, the church dignitaries “were filled with madness and communed with one another what they might do to Jesus. And it came to pass in those days that He went out into the mountain to pray, and He continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day, He called His disciples, and chose from them twelve” (Luke 6:11-13). The chronological order of the incidents related in the gospels is notoriously difficult to establish, and a loose phrase like “in those days” may be little more than a general connecting link. The prayer offered here undoubtedly refers primarily to the prayer before the choice of the twelve; but read retrospectively, it is also true, whether it is true chronologically or not. We may be sure that when public or private passion was stirred up against Him, He sought strength and comfort in communion with His Father. But of more importance is it to note that the whole night before His choice of the twelve was spent in prayer to God. Humanly speaking, on this step the whole future history of the Kingdom of God depended. The crisis was one of supreme importance: therefore it is not surprising that He prayed not only earnestly, but all night.

Similarly all the great crises of His ministry are accompanied by prayer—the baptism at the be­ginning (Luke 3:21), and towards the end the confession of His Messiahship at Caesarea Philippi (Luke 9:18). It was necessary that the right moment should be chosen for this con­fession, and on this point He must have the clearness and certainty which only His Father could give Him.

It is also very probable that all His miraculous acts of healing were accompanied by prayer. This is expressly attested for the story of Lazarus (John 11:41), and suggested by His cure of the deaf and dumb man, to whom, after looking up to heaven, he said Ephphatha (Mark 7:34). The disciples who had failed to cure the epileptic boy had forgotten that this kind could come out by nothing save by prayer (Mark 9:29): the Master who cast out the evil spirit was fresh from His prayer upon the moun­tain top. If ever any one in this world, assuredly Jesus must have prayed without ceasing; but in particular, He seems to have specially committed all that concerned His life-work into His Father’s hands. In prayer, He secured that unity of will with the Father which made Him in the deepest sense one with Him.

One of the most prominent features of the prayer- life of Jesus must have been its spirit of thanksgiving. The thanks He offered before feeding the multitude—possibly the regular grace before meat said by the head of a Jewish household—is specially mentioned in all the gospels (Matthew 15:36; Mark 6:41; Luke 9:16; John 6:11) and must have been peculiarly impres­sive. So at the grave of Lazarus His prayer begins, “Father, I thank Thee” (John 11:41). He has the glad conscious­ness that His Father hears Him always. His is a happy prayer. “He rejoiced and said, ‘I thank Thee, Father’” (Luke 10:21). In the remarkable prayer—unique in the Synoptic gospels—recorded in Matthew 11:25 ff., and Luke 10:21 f., He confesses His thanks to the Father, whose might and wisdom were incomparable, who was “Lord of heaven and earth,” and who re­vealed His truth only to the simple and childlike of heart. He knows the perfect oneness of His own will with the Father’s, and He is therefore conscious of His own uniqueness among men. Thus Jesus thanks His Father alike for the earthly things and the heavenly, the little things and the great, for the mystery of the Father’s will and for the bread that perisheth.

Like the great prophets of old, Jesus also appears in the role of intercessor. He intercedes alike for His disciples and for His tormentors. He prayed for Peter that his faith fail not (Luke 22:32), and as He prayed for him, He prayed for them all, that they should be preserved from the evil one, and sanctified in the truth (John 17:6-19); and not only for them, but also for those who should be persuaded by their word to accept Him (John 17:20-24). In His prayer at the parting of the ways, He looks down the avenue of the future, and prays for the unity of those who will believe in Him. But most wonderful of all is His prayer, “Father, forgive them,” for the men who nailed Him to the cross (Luke 23:34). This is primarily a prayer only for them. They literally did not know what they were doing. The church officials who compassed His death and the people who shouted “Away with Him,” knew much better what they were doing. At least they knew that they were devoting to death one who had healed their sick, and who had gone about doing good. But it is not to be wondered at if His challenge of official religion and of popular hopes created a deadly hostility among men of deep but natural prejudices and conventional re­ligious attainments. Of them, too, it might be said, that they did not fully know what they were doing, and the prayer for pardon is indirectly, if not directly, also for them. So far as the words of Jesus go, He never directly exhorts that “intercessions be made for all men” (1 Timothy 2:1). But He does what is more striking: He exhorts His disciples to pray for those who abuse and persecute them (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:28). This prayer is the highest and the hardest: it includes all the lesser intercessions. Jesus, who urged this duty, Himself performed it upon His cross, at a time when such a prayer must have seemed nothing less than a miracle. One who intercedes for his enemies will not be likely to forget his friends, and the world beyond the circle of his friendships. Jesus prayed for those who nailed Him to the tree, but He also prayed for Peter, for the disciples, and for those who through them should believe on Him. Thus explicitly by teaching and implicitly by practice He taught the duty of intercession.

Jesus had nothing to confess, therefore He confesses nothing. Even in the terrible hour of Gethsemane, when the darkness is such as might be felt; even on the cross, when, for the moment, He feels as if His God had forsaken Him, there is no whisper of such a thing. This would not be wonderful in Jeremiah; but in Jesus, who was sensitive, as none had ever been before, to the stain of sin, it would be wonderful, if it did not rest upon His conscious sinlessness. Confession is the one element which was necessarily absent from His prayers and necessarily present in ours. We have sins to confess and we must pray for their forgiveness, and the prayer must proceed from a heart that is itself ready to forgive the trespasses committed against it. The importance of forgiveness and the condition upon which it depends seem, judging by the peculiar nature and earnestness of the allusions, to have been a favorite theme of Jesus (Matthew 6:14 f., Matthew 18:35; Mark 11:25 f.). The man who prays must love his fellows: the unforgiving remain unforgiven. The petitions which Jesus Himself offered and exhorted others to offer are, as we might expect, pre­dominantly spiritual. The first thing to be sought was the Kingdom of God. One of the chief prayers of those who love the Lord of the harvest is that laborers be sent into His harvest (Matthew 9:38; Luke 10:2). The prayers of the early Church for boldness in preaching the gospel (Acts 4:29) show that she had learnt the lesson of Jesus well. But while prayer must be predominantly, it will not be exclusively, for things spiritual. There is no strained or unnatural idealism in the teaching of Jesus. It is not as if to Him the Kingdom of God stood first and other things nowhere, but His conception of the Kingdom of God is so comprehensive that all these other things find their place and legitimation within it. He taught His disciples to pray, “Give us bread,” and this is the eternal justification of prayer for things temporal. Man does not live by bread alone, but neither can he live without it. The heavenly Father knows that we have need of this and similar things, and therefore we may pray for them—briefly indeed and simply, but sincerely, and with no feeling that such a prayer is unworthy of one who aspires to the full stature of spiritual manhood. The tendency of a later age to give a spiritual turn to the words of Jesus is illustrated by the change of the word good things (Matthew 7:11) into the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13) in the sen­tence “How much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him!” The things to be asked must of course be good; but good in the widest and not in any exclusive sense.

“Pray that your flight be not in the winter,” (Mark 13:18; Matthew 23:20; cf. Luke 21:36) says Jesus to the people, as He foresees the “great tribulation” that is soon to fall upon them. Prayer would thus seem to be justified not only for growth in grace but for deliverance from distress, and the alleviation of misery. Jesus Himself prayed in the hour of His agony that the cup might pass from Him, and the disciple may not count Himself more spiritual than his Master. But this simple prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane is a model in more respects than one. While it justifies a petition for deliverance from distress, it also shows that the deepest desire of the man who prays must be not for his own deliverance, but for the glory of God and the triumph of the Divine will in him. “Father, save me from this hour; but, Father, glorify Thy name.” (John 12:27 f.) “Not my will, but Thine be done.” The struggle in Gethsemane was a very real one. Jesus prayed, according to a late but very credible tradition, till His sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling down upon the ground (Luke 22:44). He offered suppli­cations with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death (Hebrews 5:7). He prayed that the cup might be removed, that the way might not be so terrible; but through, and above, and crowning all, that the will of God be done. He might have prayed for twelve legions of angels, but He refused to offer such a prayer; for that, at any rate, was not His Father’s will. The Father is glorified when His will is done. “I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given Me to do” (John 17:4). The glory of God, in this sense, is the goal of history—the establishment of a kingdom in which His will is done as the angels do it in heaven. Con­sidering Christ’s consciousness of His own unique relation to the Father and to men (Matthew 11:25-27), it is fitting that His great intercessory prayer should begin with a petition for the glory of the Father and the Son, each through the other (John 17:1). For once it would seem as if Jesus’ sustaining con­sciousness of fellowship with the Father was momentarily clouded. In indescribable torture of body and spirit upon the cross He meekly asks His God why He had thus forsaken Him (Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46). It is a cry out of the deepest depths that sorrow has ever sounded. Yet He knows Himself not utterly forsaken: He can still appeal to Him and say “My God.” It is of pecu­liar interest that He does not call God here, as every­where else, Father. The reason can hardly be that the appeal is a literal quotation from Psalms 22:1, because the words, “Father, into Thy hands I com­mend My spirit,” are also a quotation; but here Jesus has substituted Father for the Lord (or, in the Hebrew, Jehovah) in the second half of the verse of the original Psalm (Psalms 31:5 b). He is free to amplify or adapt the original words; consequently, if He retains them, it must be because they perfectly express the mood of the moment. In that awful crisis God is felt to be God rather than Father; but He is still “My God.” After­wards, the feeling of abandonment vanishes. God passes as God, and returns as Father, and into the Father’s hands Jesus commends His spirit, with the quietness, the clearness, the simplicity, the triumphant confidence which had marked all His earthly ministry. The most complete and connected expression of Jesus’ conception of prayer is to be found in the Lord’s prayer (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4). It is not in the least probable that He intended to bind this prayer upon His disciples. He imparted a spirit, He did not impose a law—as little in prayer as in any other exercise of religion; and we cannot suppose that He prescribed a prayer. That was not His way. The prayer is a model, in­comparable and inimitable; and because inimitable nothing is more natural than that it should very early have fallen into regular use. The Didache already prescribes its repetition three times a day. But it is essentially a model: its object was to present the ideal of prayer.

One cannot but wonder whether the disciples were not disappointed when they heard it for the first time. According to one account (Luke 11:1), it was given in response to one of the disciples who had apparently been struck by Jesus’ prayer, and was eager to learn its secret. And what is its secret? Most of the petitions had in some form or other been offered before. In its individual expressions it was not and could not be something absolutely new and original. It but ex­pressed a longing for the deepest things; and that longing had, by devout men, been felt and expressed before. But assuredly never so expressed: never with such brevity, sureness, clearness, comprehensiveness, depth, power, simplicity. Other men had said more, or less—had often said little when they seemed to be saying much. He said enough, because He said everything. These seven (Six, according to some, who count the last two as one) petitions sweep the whole range of religious aspiration, leaving nothing untouched or unilluminated. Like the twenty-third Psalm, the Lord’s prayer is appropriate to every stage of religious development. A child can understand it, but the wisest cannot exhaust its depths. As we grow, it grows: we never leave it behind. Like the parables of Christ it has an inexhaustible power of suggestion. Every new experience of life sheds new light upon its meaning, while in its turn it sheds light on every new experience. It “may be committed to memory quickly,” as F. D. Maurice says, “but it is slowly learnt by heart.” The brevity of the prayer is its first surprise, and this is without doubt one of the lessons Jesus meant to teach. According to its setting in the Sermon on the Mount, it is given as a contrast to the wordiness which characterized heathen and even much Jewish prayer. “When you pray, do not babble, like the heathen; for they think that they shall be heard for their multitude of words. Do not be like them. This is the way to pray.” Then follows a prayer of barely more than half a minute’s length, if so much. And the prayer is brief, partly because it deals with the fundamental things, which are few—the kingdom and the will of God, the need of bread, of forgiveness and deliverance—and partly because it leaves everything to God. There is no dictation. How the kingdom is to come, how we are to be delivered from tempta­tion, it does not say: these things are left to the omnipotent wisdom of God. The simplicity of the prayer is as striking as its brevity. Jesus meant to teach that the simplest prayer is also the highest and the truest. It is the natural speech of a child to the holy Father, and an everlasting rebuke to all unnaturalness and exaggera­tion, whether in expression, thought, or feeling. Our Father. This, then, was how to address God in prayer; not by calling Him God, and then by heaping high epithet upon epithet—“the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who keepest covenant and loving-kindness” (Cf. Nehemiah 9:32) — but simply by calling Him Father, our Father, for we are all brethren. The first words usher us into the presence of a great com­pany of brethren whom no man can number. Our Father who art in heaven. So Jesus Himself prayed: “I thank Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth.” As heaven is high above the earth—infinitely more high and mysterious to us than it could have been to the Jews of Jesus’ time—so the Father is higher than the children who cry to Him. The trust and familiarity awakened by the thought of the Fatherhood are touched to the deepest humility and reverence, as the worshipper faces the God whose home is the infinite universe, and the heart is expanded by the contemplation of such a Father and such a home.

How any one who thus addresses God can remain narrow in mind or heart is a mystery; for in this ad­dress the finite man faces the universe, he acknow­ledges his kinship with humanity and with the in­finite Father.

Hallowed be Thy name. To a Semitic ear the name meant far more than to us. The name of God re­presented all that was covered by the term God—His being and character, including of course His name. All this must be held in holiest reverence. His name must not be used in a spirit of frivolity or thoughtless­ness, profanity or superstition. Even in prayer this reverence has to be carefully guarded. It is for­gotten by the garrulous, who make long prayers, use vain repetitions, and seem to suppose that they will be heard for their much speaking. This prayer is a petition for a worthy attitude to God, to religion, to worship. It implies a rebuke of the indifference to religion which characterizes many who profess it, and of the noisy and unseemly familiarity which charac­terizes the worship of many who really believe in it.

Thy kingdom come. There is a growing belief that much of the New Testament in general, and such phrases as this in particular, are to be interpreted in an eschatological sense. Whether or no, the kingdom of God would, in any case, be in its essence a moral and spiritual kingdom. The time and the nature of its coming might be differently conceived; but in its essence it was righteousness, peace and joy (Romans 14:17), and, as such, was already in the midst of them (Luke 17:20 f.). Apart from all historical and theological questions, the prayer is essentially a petition for the triumph of the cause of God in the world—of truth, and goodness, and love. It suggests visions of a day when all the world will be united as one, under the kingship of God, and when all the interests and ambitions of men will be con­trolled by the necessities of the kingdom. His subjects must be willing, for in the kingdom of God there is no constraint: therefore Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. The angels, “mighty in strength, hearken unto the voice of His word,” (Psalms 103:20) and like those obedient messengers of Hebrew narrative and poetry, so are we to do His will, swiftly, gladly and without constraint; for the will must be willingly done: it is the will of the Father whose children we are. It would hardly be just to the spirit of the prayer to trace any rigid logical connection between its petitions—indeed, in one aspect, they are practically synonymous—and yet it is perhaps not altogether fanciful to see in them a certain simple progress. The will of God can only be done by men who honor the name and live for the kingdom. Where and when the name is hallowed, the kingdom comes and the will is done. In the fourth petition we turn—but without any sense of break—from the contemplation of God’s majestic universe, kingdom and will, to the more specific needs and frailties of men. Give us our bread for the day, whether today or tomorrow: the phrase is hard and need not be here discussed, but the meaning is plain. We cannot be too grateful for this simple recognition on the part of our Lord of the material basis of human life. True, only one petition of the seven is for material things, but, in One whose outlook on life was so sane and true, that one could not fail. “Ye have need of these things.” That is His will, and His will be done. The petition is at once modest and comprehensive; it is not a prayer for prosperity, far less for luxury, but simply for that which makes life possible, and even that simply for the day—not for that abundance which will deliver us from anxiety for the morrow. But, on the other hand, it is implicitly a prayer for all that is needed to make life possible. How much more than bread that may mean each man has to determine for himself. To all it will include clothing and shelter, to some it may mean more. It suggests and includes, in its grandly simple way, all that is necessary to sustain the life—in the largest sense—of men. No healthy recognition in prayer of the natural basis of life can be unworthy. The whole earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof. Every creature of God is good, and may be sanctified through prayer (1 Timothy 4:4). But more pathetic than man’s need of bread is his need of forgiveness. The petition forgive us our debts excludes all possibility of self-righteousness: the worshipper implicitly confesses his guilt and ac­knowledges its seriousness, for he also confesses his need of forgiveness. His petition implies a longing to be at one again with the Father, and his confession of guilt is useless unless it be sincere, for he must be prepared to show the same mercy to others that he craves for himself. If he will not forgive others, then it is the simple fact that God cannot forgive him (Matthew 6:15). As the past is full of sin that needs to be forgiven, so the future is full of peril, in which the old sins may be repeated, and new ones committed; therefore lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. The latter petition, though, in a sense, independent, in another sense explains and deepens the former. The former is essentially a prayer that we may not be led into situations that will tempt us. But the power of temptation lies in our susceptibility to evil; if we are delivered from that, the temptations into which the casual circumstances of our life may bring us will have no more power over us. And thus the Lord’s prayer ends; for the doxology, though altogether worthy, is no part of the original prayer. It ends with the thought of the great anta­gonist, whether we call that evil or the evil One, and thus forms a somber contrast to the great Father in heaven at the beginning of the prayer. It makes us feel the terribleness of life to all who take it seriously; life is threatened and, apart from God, is overpowered by the strong man who can spoil it of all its goods. But the great antagonist meets his match in the great Redeemer of human life, and the prayer ends, not with the thought of the antagonist, but with that of redemption—deliver us—and thus carries us back from the pain and struggle and temptations of earth to the serene atmosphere of the opening petitions, with its outlook upon the glorious kingdom and the will of, the Father in heaven.

Like all the words of Christ, this prayer searches. What do we care for the name and the kingdom and the will of God? And how do we show that we care? These questions must rise to the heart of one who is praying sincerely. And the prayer is also a confession. In our prayer for bread, we confess our impotence over the mysterious forces of nature, and our absolute dependence upon God. In our prayer for forgiveness and deliverance, we confess our utter and infinite weakness.

It is often said that this prayer indirectly teaches that in prayer the things of God must come first: after a petition for the triumph of His cause, we may then petition for our own affairs. This is to ignore, however, the very intimate connection between its two parts, and can hardly be in the spirit of Jesus. The kingdom comes through the practice of loving forgiveness between man and man, the will of God is done by men who fear and shun temptation. The last three petitions are but the translation, in terms of human life, of conditions which the first three regard from the standpoint of God. Man is implicated in the first half of the prayer, as surely as God is in the second. The kingdom of God is not in the air, it is “among you.” |The will of God is to be done upon the earth. The divine interests are not to be separated from human interests, they are the same. The hallowing of His name, the coming of His kingdom, the doing of His will are as truly our affair as daily bread and forgiveness of sins and redemption from evil. The Lord’s prayer illustrates what men ought to pray for: it goes without saying that such prayer, if sincere, would be earnest. It could only be offered by a man to whom the kingdom of God and the forgiveness of sins were dear. The more earnestly it was offered, the more surely it would be answered; for the interest betokened by the petitions would be, in a sense, their fulfillment. It is not surprising therefore that Jesus should teach the duty of persistency in prayer. He Himself prayed with strong crying and tears; and when His request was not granted the first time, or the second, “He prayed a third time, saying again the same words” (Matthew 26:44). Prayer He compared to knocking, as if the door remained closed till the knock was heard. But how long has the suppliant to knock till the door is opened? There are two parables which seem to suggest not only the duty of persistence, but of importunity— the parables of the friend who came at midnight (Luke 11:5-8), and the unjust judge (Luke 18:1-8). In the sense that one cannot pray such a prayer as the Lord’s Prayer too earnestly, importunity is intel­ligible and unobjectionable. But the first impression made by the parables seems to carry us beyond this. The friend within is surly. “Don’t worry me. I can’t get up and give you.” But “I tell you,” says Jesus, “though he won’t rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needs.” This is a very bold illustration, altogether in the manner of Jesus; but we must not draw from the parable more than it was intended to yield. It is surely obvious that the friend within does not adequately represent God. He has no sympathy for the needs of the man at his door, but he finally gets up for peace’ sake and gives him all he needs, perhaps to make sure that he will not soon be back again. Anything more unlike what is elsewhere called “the philanthropy of our Savior God” (Titus 3:4) it would be almost impossible to conceive. The one thing the parable is intended to teach is the need of persistence; and the reasonableness of that— considering the things we ought to pray for, as suggested by the Lord’s Prayer (It is of great importance to note that this parable imme­diately follows the Lord’s prayer) — we have already seen. Persist­ence, importunity if you like, is the test of sincerity; but it is not for a moment to be supposed that impor­tunity could extort from God gifts which He is initially unwilling to grant. An almost more daring illustration of the need of persistency is furnished by the parable of the unjust judge. The judge is determined to refuse the widow’s request, but he finally grants it. “Though I have no fear of God, and no regard for man, yet because she worries me, I will give her satisfaction, to keep her from wearing me out by her everlasting visits.” Surely it is as plain as day that this man cannot repre­sent God. He is unjust and irreligious; but he, like the friend in bed, finally grants the request simply to secure his own comfort. If the figure of the judge is so totally inadequate to represent God, why should we suppose that his conduct can typify that of God—that God, like him, can, as it were, be coerced, by the per­sistence of the petitioner, into granting a request which He is at first disposed to refuse? Here we must say, as before, that the lesson is simply one of the duty of persistency; and the reasonableness of this persistency must be obvious to one who has learned his conception of prayer from the example of Jesus.

If there is any analogy at all, it is rather this: If an unwilling friend and an unjust judge will yield to a persistent petition for earthly things, how much more will the heavenly Father to a petition for the heavenly things! It is altogether alien to the spirit of Jesus and of healthy religion to speak of assaulting the walls of heaven and of wresting a blessing from God Almighty. The ultimate prayer is, “Thy will be done”; and the more earnestly we offer that prayer, the better it will be for ourselves and the world. But earnestness is one thing, and violent importunity another. If it is the will of God we desire to see accom­plished, and not our own will, we shall be content to be earnest without being violent. Against an impor­tunity which may sometimes only be a disguised selfishness, we have to remember that we shall not be heard for our much speaking, and that our Father in heaven knows what things we have need of.

It may even fairly be questioned whether the moral of the parable of the unjust judge really originates, at any rate in its present form, with Jesus. The prayer of the elect, which can count on being answered, is a prayer for vengeance—such a prayer as was natural enough to Jeremiah and Nehemiah, and apparently even to Jewish Christians (Revelation 6:10), but hardly such a prayer as could have been offered or prescribed by Him who said, “Pray for them that persecute you” (Matthew 5:44), and who almost with His last breath prayed for His own tormentors. It is much more like a cry from a later time of persecution: there is a vehemence about it which suggests dark days. “Shall not God avenge His elect? I tell you; He will avenge them speedily.” The manner of Christ’s prayers must have been as striking as their contents. Into the mystery of His private prayers we are seldom permitted to look. He loved the loneliness—the mountains and the desert places. Even from His disciples “He was parted about a stone’s throw” when He knelt down and prayed (Luke 22:41). He believed in the closed door, and He left the street comers to the hypocrites. But He also knew the joy and help of fellowship, and more than once He took Peter and James and John with Him to pray. Special influences were in the air when “two or three were gathered together.” It is to this that we owe our knowledge of the scene in Gethsemane and on the mount of transfiguration, which was the mount of prayer. As He was praying, the fashion of His countenance was altered (Luke 9:29). We can well suppose that not only then, but every time He prayed, His face was transfigured. The effect of prayer upon the face—its permanent expression of quiet and the temporary light that kindles it in the moment of devotion—this may be witnessed today; and what must have been its effect upon that face? When He spoke, everyone was astonished, for He spoke with authority; when He prayed, every one was equally astonished, for He prayed with transfigured face. It is the old phenomenon we witnessed in the prophets: they had power with men, because they had prevailed with God. The extraordinary impressiveness—shall we say fascination? — of Jesus’ prayer is suggested over and over again. It was this, according to one version, that led one of the disciples to put to Him the question which led to the Lord’s prayer. In prayer, especially in the open air, He is often recorded as having looked up. This He did before His healing miracles (Mark 7:34; John 11:41), and this trait is mentioned in one group of the narratives of His feeding of the multitude (Matthew 14:19; Mark 6:41; Luke 9:16). Nothing could have been more impressive than to see that shining face up­turned in prayer before a great expectant multitude sitting on the grass. The prayer which Jesus offered before the feeding of the multitude is not recorded; it is simply said that He blessed (or gave thanks, Matthew 15:36; Mark 8:6) and brake and gave. It so happens that all the illustrations of prayer before a meal in the New Testament are important for other reasons: the feeding of the multitude, the institution of the supper (Matthew 26:26 f; Mark 14:22 f.), the evening meal at Emmaus (Luke 24:30), the meal after Paul’s shipwreck (Acts 27:35) —these are all occasions which may well have called forth special prayer. Yet it is quite possible that the prayers then offered were simply the ordinary thanksgiving or grace before meat, offered by the head of a Jewish family. What this was in the time of Jesus, we cannot be sure; but it was probably not unlike the later prayer, “Blessed be the Creator of the fruits of the earth.” The prayer was brief, but as Jesus would offer it, with His eyes lifted up to heaven, those who heard it would carry the im­pression of it with them to their graves. That there was a peculiar solemnity about the way in which Jesus gave thanks and broke bread is made very plain by the Emmaus story. “When He had sat down with them to meat, He took the bread and blessed, and He broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew Him” (Luke 24:30 f.). Nobody had ever broken bread or given thanks like Him. A curious confirmation of this view of the special solemnity of Jesus’ thanksgiving before meat occurs in an altogether incidental remark in John 6:23 : “there came boats from Tiberias nigh unto the place where they ate the bread after the Lord had given thanks” Surely, in the simple description of a place, this is a very remarkable addition; but it points to the extraordinary and indelible impression produced by the prayers of Jesus.

Thrice happy those who were privileged to hear Jesus pray! His manner can never be recalled or repeated, because He stands alone among the sons of men; but the prayers themselves are for us and for all men. Among all the dissensions that have dishonored the name of Jesus, and stained the history of the Christian Church, the prayer He taught His disciples has been an ideal bond throughout the centuries, binding to­gether all that believe in Him; and, whatever the future may have in store, that prayer will continue to hold His Church together, while the world stands.