I saw a video of a young ‘genious’ physicist opining about God. At least he believed in the Creator. However, he dismissed the notion of Scripture offering us the Truth of God on a colloquial level. Thus, the young man does not ‘pray’. It is sad the damage a good intellect can do when it is not acknowledged as a gift from the Creator.
Prayer, done properly, is communication with God, through Yeshua the Messiah, by the very Breath of God, the “Holy Spirit”, or “Ruakh [breath] HaKodesh [the consecrated]”.
Anyone who knows me well, knows that one of, if not my very favorite chapter[s] of scripture, is John (Yokhanan) chapter 17.
The Passover Seder that Yeshua conducted had just ended, and to conclude the Seder, Yeshua says an unscripted prayer.
This is one of the reasons this chapter is so meaningful to me, because, selfishly, I realized that He prayed for me before His own darkest hour [vs. 20-23]. What selflessness.
Through the help and compulsion of God’s Spirit, I have managed to maintain a pretty regular prayer life for many years. And there are prayers that we pray daily, three times a day, as the example of scriptures gives us.
Some people think that praying prayers that are ‘scripted’ is sin. What’s ironically funny about that, is that no one halts at praying what most call “The Lord’s Prayer”, which we call the Disciples’ Prayer [Prayer of the Talmidim], but they will willingly and joyfully chime in and recite that prayer at any venue or event, in violation of their own doctrine.
Further, when the Disciples/Talmidim asked Him to teach them to pray, Yeshua said, “When you pray, SAY…”, and then He gave them the words to say. And thus, most believers know one or more versions of that prayer and willingly recite it in public with a body of confessors, regardless of their convictions on the error of ‘corporate, recited’ prayer.
People are not aware that the different sects and their Rabbis in the 1st century were teaching daily prayers to pray. Most notably is what is today called “The Amidah”, which is the “standing prayer” that is still said at mid-day by observant Jews today. It is also called “The Eighteen Benedictions”, as there are 18 verses of prayer in it.
This was a set of prayers that observant Jews were doing mid-day, if they could. There was no printing press, and people could not carry around a ‘prayer book’ [Siddur]; those who had time could memorize the Amidah, but learning it and having time to commit it such that it could be said by rote was probably difficult for some.
The Talmidim saw Yeshua as their Rabbi. Thus, the other Rabbis were competing with Yeshua to establish doctrine among Jews. Yeshua showed up at a time when there was great controversy in “Judaism”, between two major sects, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And within the Pharisees there was already division, as they had divided into two “Houses” or “Schools”, the House of Hillel, and the House of Shammai. But, they all agreed on the importance of the regularity of praying three times daily. Today, Islamists faithfully pray five times daily, while most believers pray focused prayer maybe once a day, as they fall asleep. Or none at all.
It was midday when the Talmidim asked Yeshua for a prayer, and He gave them that most notable prayer. It is very much an abridgment of the Amidah! The Amidah includes praise and acknowledgment of the Name of יהוה , prayers for health, prayers for unity in Israel, prayers of repentance, prayers for good crops/food, etc. All the elements in it are contained in Yeshua’s much shorter version, which has proven very easy for even children to commit to memory.
I said all that to assert that the recitation of corporate prayers is not evil. If it is, Yeshua would not have given us a prayer ‘to say’. Prayers done in public for vanity’s sake, by hypocrites, in order to be seen by men as righteous, are the public prayers that Yeshua eschewed. Honest and earnest congregational prayers are not. We see Israel saying corporate prayers in unison, many times, and we see all of Heaven, and earth, doing so multiple times in the book of Revelation!
As I was praying this morning, and for the last couple of weeks each day, it has been in me to make certain that I am not merely ‘saying’ the words. I want to make sure that my heart petitions God for the words that the Spirit gave the prophets for the Body of Messiah.
All the prayers we pray are scripture citations, quotations, and most of them were done by the priests in the Temple, and were scripted by King David and others for that purpose.
In Yeshua’s day, Jewish men typically went to the Synagogue each morning to pray, and returned there at evening to pray, to pray the same prayers along with the Priests that served in the Temple at those times. But, many of them could not go to the Synagogue during mid-day prayers. So, they would stop and ‘stand’, and pray as instructed by their Rabbis, the prayers that are now called “The Amidah”.
But, Yeshua demonstrates to us that prayer is sometimes very personal and situational, and should also be part of the life of a believer.
And His last prayer in front of His Talmidim is beautiful, before He goes away to pray privately over what is about to befall Him:
John 17:
The first thing Yeshua does in His prayer is glorify His Father, and ask for Him to give LIFE to those who trust in God through His own message.
Then He submits to God that He has completed His work, making known the Name of יהוה to those who followed Him. He expressed that His followers now understood that God, יהוה, had SENT Him into the world, and that His “Words” have been accepted by them, so He asks God His Father to protect them.
At His own darkest hour, which eventually leads to such terror that He bleeds from it, He asks His Father to protect His students by His Very Name, which God had given to Him. “Protect them from evil, for they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.”
He then prays that they remain consecrated in His Word. This means that what they believe and do should match what Yeshua believed and did. To be consecrated is to be set aside for a particular purpose, and that purpose was to make The Word known to those around us: “Consecrate them in Your Truth: Your Word IS TRUTH.”
Again, in the hour that He knows great pain and sorrow is going to come to Him, He is praying for those around Him. His last speech was a prayer for them: He is sending them out into the world to do what He had done in Israel.
Then, He asks the Father to remember US:
20“I am not making request for these alone, but also for the sake of those who trust in me through their word.
Anyone who says he believes in or follows the Messiah of Israel must believe in the works and the writings of those He sent: Apostles/Shlikhim; i.e.: “sent ones.” Only by doing that will we be UNIFIED.
Anyone who deviates from the way the Apostles taught has deviated from Messiah and has caused division in His Body. That kind of division endangers those thus taught to being separated altogether from the actual Body of Messiah.
Yeshua saw that coming, and prays for us, those who believe in Yeshua through the Words of the Apostles, [not the Popes, Luther, Calvin, Oprah, or Billy Graham, or any other ilk] that we would be UNIFIED. And the purpose of that is so that the ‘world’, those who do not know Him, would come to believe that God the Creator SENT Him into the world, so that we might be united with the Father just as Yeshua was and is.
Yeshua closes His prayer praying for all of us. The terror of His coming trial, flogging, and execution He does not address: He prays to glorify His Father and to protect and unify those who would trust in Him, closing His prayer this way:
25O My Righteous Father [Avi HaTzadik], the world did not know You, but I have known You; and these have known that You have sent me. 26And I have made Your Name known to them, and I am still making it known, so that the love with which You have loved me may be among them, and I may be in them.”
Yeshua was a practicing Jew, who had just conducted a Passover Seder, in which the ancient elements of the 15 “Kodashim” or ‘consecrated things’ contained many recitations. Today’s Rabbis recognize the 15 steps of the Seder seen in the gospels, the most ancient source for the details of a Jewish Seder. There were undoubtedly recited prayers, as some of them are given specifically by God in the book of Exodus in the passover story itself. We still say those today. But, there were no scripted prayers for Him to pray in the Garden, other than the Hallel, which means “The Praise”, prayers He was about to sing with His Disciples [John 18:1, Matt 26:30, Mark 15:26, Luke 39]. The Hallel is Psalm 113-118, and Psalm 118 began to prepare Him for His upcoming suffering:
5Out of my straits I called upon יהוה ; He answered me with great enlargement.
6 יהוה is for me; I will not fear; what can man do unto me?
17I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of יהוה .
22The stone which the builders rejected is become the chief corner-stone.
23This is the one which is from יהוה ; it is marvelous in our eyes.
24This is the day which יהוה has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
But Yeshua took His prayer further, all the way to the point of sweating blood from His brow.
Here, Yeshua was ‘pressed’ like olives by the distress of what He knew was coming on Him in a few short hours.
So He prayed.
Even hours later, after having been flogged such that His back was torn open, and having a crown of thorns degrading Him, and having been stripped naked and nailed to a tree on the beam He had just carried up a hill, He yet prays the scriptures:
אֵלִי אֵלִי לָמָה עֲזַבְתָּנִי
“My God; My God; why have you forsaken me?”
That is all we heard from His lips, but I just know that He continued that prayer deep in His soul, to prepare for what would happen to Him on the other side of death:
2Eli, Eli, why have You forsaken me, and are far from my Salvation at the words of my cry?
3O my Elohim, I call by day, but You answer not; and at night, and there is no silence for me.
4Yet You are Kadosh, O You that are enthroned upon the praises of Yisra’el.
5In You did our fathers trust; they trusted, and You did deliver them.
6Unto You they cried, and escaped; in You did they trust, and were not ashamed.
7But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.
8All they that see me laugh me to scorn; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head:
9“Let him commit himself unto יהוה ! Let Him rescue him; let Him deliver him, seeing He delights in him.”
10For You are He that took me out of the womb; You made me trust when I was upon my mother’s breasts.
11Upon You I have been cast from my birth; You are my Elohim from my mother’s womb.
12Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.
13Many bulls have encompassed me; strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round about.
14They open wide their mouth against me, as a ravening and a roaring lion.
15I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is become like wax; it is melted in my inmost parts.
16My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaves to my throat; and You lay me in the dust of Mavet.
17For dogs have encompassed me; a company of evil-doers have enclosed me; like a lion, they are at my hands and my feet.
18I may count all my bones; they look and gloat over me.
19They part my garments among them, and for my vesture do they cast lots.
20But You, O יהוה , be not far off; O You my strength, hasten to help me.
21Deliver my soul from the sword; my only one from the power of the dog.
22Save me from the lion’s mouth; yes, from the horns of the wild-oxen do You answer me.
23I will declare Your Name unto my brethren; in the midst of the congregation will I praise You.
24“You that fear יהוה , praise Him; all you the seed of Ya’akov, glorify Him; and stand in awe of Him, all you the seed of Yisra’el.
25For He has not despised nor abhorred the lowliness of the poor; neither has He hidden His face from him; but when he cried unto Him, He heard.”
26From You comes my praise in the great congregation; I will pay my vows before them that fear Him.
27Let the humble eat and be satisfied; let them praise יהוה that seek after Him; may your heart be quickened forever!
28All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto יהוה ; and all the kindreds of the goyim shall worship before You.
29For HaM’lukha belongs to יהוה ; and He is the ruler over the goyim.
30All the fat ones of the earth shall eat and worship; all they that go down to the dust shall kneel before Him, even he that cannot keep his soul alive.
31A seed shall serve him; it shall be told of Adonai unto the next generation.
32They shall come and shall declare His righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that He has done it.
I now pray regularly for the unification of His Body of believers, just as Yeshua did just before going out to “The Oil Press”, “Gat Shemen”, the garden where He sweated blood in prayer.
I pray that His Body would become aware of the simplicity of prayer, and stop seeking for ‘new’ ways to pray, praying for selfish things, and thinking that being filled with His Spirit is only seen by speaking gibberish. If we all thought like Yeshua did in His prayer, then we could surely speed the day of His return. Which is the last ‘corporate’ prayer we see:
“Bo!” Where we read, the Spirit and the Bride say, “Come! And let him who hears say, ‘Come!’ And he who is thirsty, let him come. And whoever will, let him take of the Living Water [Mayim Khayim] freely.”
The compassion of Adoneinu Yeshua HaMashi’akh be with you all, all you K’doshim. Amein.