Jesus took time to pray
Jesus demonstrated time and again that he had the power to work miracles – at least those who saw him face to face believed that he did. Yet despite this obvious power Jesus seems to have needed to take time for prayer.
It’s one of those strange questions that often comes up about Jesus. If Jesus is the second person of the trinity (e.g. God himself) why did he feel that he needed to pray? Jesus seemed to have great power at his disposal and yet time and again there are references in the gospels to Jesus going off to pray. I’m sure that this question was just as aparent to the gospel writers as it is to us today and yet they don’t gloss over this simple fact. They claim that Jesus was God (you have to do some serious bending of the gospels to conclude otherwise) and yet they tell us that Jesus went off to pray.
The truth is that although we have lots of references to Jesus praying we have very little of his prayers actually recorded and when we do we notice something quite revealing. In John’s gospel we read about Jesus praying for his friend Lazarus. During this prayer Jesus makes it quite clear that he does it for the benefit of those watching and not because he needs to.
Then again the longest of the prayers of Jesus is in John’s gospel when he prays for the disciples. There are also prayers recorded in the garden of Gethsemane. In both of these prayers Jesus is talking – quite intimately – with his father. Among other things these prayers point towards the Christian belief in the Trinity (how can God pray to God?).
Then the disciples ask for help in learning how to pray and Jesus gives them what has become known as the Lord’s prayer. This is a framework for us to pray from and not really an example of how Jesus himself prayed.
The truth is that most of the time Jesus didn’t make his prayers public. However we do know that he spent whole nights in prayer and on one occasion spent 40 days and nights in the wilderness praying.
If Jesus sees prayer as such an important part of his own life – why should we think we can get away with anything less? I’m not suggesting that all night prayer vigils are the thing for everyone but I am suggesting that we should all pray as much as we can.
How often do you pray?
