“PRAY YE”
Saint John 16: 23-30
Rogate: 1 May Anno Domini 2016
Father Jay Watson SSP
Today’s Introit says: “with the voice of singing declare ye.” This Gospel reality reveals that your joyous celebration of Christ’s victory bestowed freely to you, upon you, and in you, is so grace-filled that you can’t just speak it but that you sing it! You declare to others, to the world, that He Who is risen from the dead gives you all things!
When the “12” were with The Lord during His three years of public, open, and visible ministry, they could and did ask Him things directly. They spoke to His face and requested man to Messias. Jesus was informing them in our text that that time would soon come to an end. They would communicate and desire His intercessions but it would be in a different way.
Post Ascension and their Lord’s visible absence they would be given the honor and privilege to address His Father, The 1st Person of The Holy Trinity, as their very own Father—by praying in His Son’s Name—In Jesus’ + Name.
The subject of prayer is one that comes up constantly and the questions are always the same. Why should we pray if God is good and gracious and in His omniscience knows all things that are needed and in His omnipotence does all things needed? All of the answers are found in the explanations at the back of your hardback Small Catechisms right before the Scriptural source texts for the Our Father. Read them if your rebellious will chafes at daily prayer. Repent of your sloth and insolence. Do not be the sulky and selfish “teenager” that gives your loving parent the silent treatment because things are tough and you’re not having your way!
Today is Rogate Sunday, the Sunday before The Ascension. This Thursday at Mass the Paschal Candle will be extinguished, but it will still be here in the Chancel, next to the Altar—the Sanctuary—but in a different way. This is a picture of your Lord’s Ascension. He is still with you but in a different (invisible) way. Today He again prepared, the “12,” and He prepares you: PRAY YE! Pray ye is what Rogate means as you’ve probably already surmised by looking the word up in the front of your hymnals at page 168 of the glossary.
Pray Ye: is this Law or Gospel? Yes. God’s Word, His total counsel comes to you and the uncompromising Law cuts you down and pins you to the ground dead, as if Jael had driven a peg through your own pagan Sisera head! Pray Ye! Call out to The Lord as David did in His sin, as Job did in his pain, as the Israelites did as they were also dying, bit by the same fiery serpents that you are bit by in your own trespasses, guilt, and original corruption. You first pray by confessing your sins to God your Father. The good news is that He is God your Father by virtue of His only-begotten Son’s life and death. By Jesus being the dutiful Son while you were the profligate prodigal, you have been restored and robed and ringed and fed not just the fatted calf but The Lamb’s own Flesh and Blood. By The Son of God’s suffering and death on the cross, The Father is no longer cross with you, the enmity and wrath has been quenched in Christ’s Blood and Water.
So this morning, Pray Ye, means most especially “talk to me my beloved; come to me when you are weary, weighted down, hurting, and sorrowful; where does it hurt; how can I help; share your heart with Me for I give you my own Heart, Blood, Breath and Light!”
Is there anything, at all, that is better than life and salvation? No, there can’t be, because true life, full life, Eden-filled paradise life and the salvation from death, hell, and Satan, gives that family, that closeness, that total acceptance, and peace that passes understanding; that is Heaven—that is being with and in Jesus. And all this comes when He gives you forgiveness of sins. You pray for what you really (REALLY) need, and that is—forgiveness. He absolves you not in prayer, not in your work or activity of bowing head, folding hands, furrowing brow, and getting earnest in petitioning…but He forgives you in His Word, His + Washing, and His Supper—all given and shed for you.
The next time the devil reminds you of your past, remind him of his future.
Both your past and future are found in your Lord’s Body and Blood. In and covered in Christ: “…the Father Himself loveth you.”
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
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