Hebrews 5 7-9
Lent 5
Hebrews 5:7-9
April 6, 2003
“He Was Heard”
William Barclay in The Letter to the Hebrews notes the saying of the rabbis: “There are three kinds of prayers, each loftier than the preceding—prayer, crying, and tears. Prayer is made in silence; crying with raised voice; but tears overcome all things.” Whether or not the author of the Epistle had something like this saying in mind we do not know. What the writer recounts for us is the passionate suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. In the shadow of the cross our Lord Jesus offered up prayers and petitions to His God and Father with “loud cries and tears”, even of blood. Our Great High Priest, the incarnate God, Jesus Christ, humbly and obediently comes before His Father in prayer. Our text tells us that “He was heard.” “He was heard.”
It seems almost strange and indignant, this passion that is displayed by our Lord in prayer. Can you imagine your pastor offering up prayers and in the process crying out to God in a loud voice and emotionally overcome by tears? Some people would think it totally inappropriate for the pastor to act this way. How much more so for God to act like this? Certainly God should act in a more dignified manner. Yet God ordained that Christ, assuming human nature so completely, express His humanity in such a passionate way.
Jesus was God and man. As a man He submitted to His Fathers will. He did not demand His own way, but only that His Father’s will be done. He knew that His submission would lead Him to be crucified the very next day. His Father heard His prayers, and still allowed His Son to suffer. And we know why, don’t we. Because He was heard by His Father we can be sure that we too are heard, even when we too are allowed to suffer.
I. You are Heard.
Jane moved with her family to a new city. Jane had to go to a new school. She didn’t want to go to the new school though. She cried and threw herself on the floor. She sobbed, “Please, please, don’t make me go! I want to stay home! I can learn at home. Isn’t there a way that I can stay home?” Jane needed to learn how to read and write and do math.. She would not learn anything if she stayed home. Jane’s parents said, “We know this is not easy. But it is something you have to do. You have to go to the new school. There is no other way.” In the morning, Jane got dressed and ate breakfast, but not much, because her tummy hurt. And Jane went to school. Jane obeyed her parents because she knew it was the best thing to do. It was hard, but Jane did it.
In today’s society there are common misconceptions about prayer. While it seems just about everyone believes in the power of prayer, it seems like few people get past praying for either increased blessings or decreased pain. Rather than believing in God and therefore praying to Him, many people believe in the power of their prayers to effect a change for the better in the way God treats them. On the one hand, prayer it seems is the hand that rubs the magic Genie’s lamp for the granting of three wishes. On the other hand prayer is seen as a way to avoid what seems to be God’s evil intention towards those who suffer. Neither of these is a correct understanding of prayer.
In the story about Jane, her parents heard her cries. They saw her sob. They saw her passionately throw herself on the floor. They heard her fervent requests, “let me stay home…don’t make me go.” They knew the trouble and anxiety Jane felt. Yet they knew what was best for Jane. Their love for her was never once diminished. They never left her alone. They heard her yet they let her suffer. They knew the good that was yet to come.
We are often like Jane. We do not understand the will of God in our lives yet assume that God’s will would not be to allow us to suffer. We assume that He would only give us what we consider to be blessings. That is not the real world and that is not how God operates in this world. He often uses things that we don’t understand to accomplish his greater purpose. We need not rub God with our prayers or hide under them like a protective umbrella from a rain of suffering. When we pray, pray passionately like our Lord Jesus did, we can be confident, no matter what, that our Lord hears us. When we pray we can be confident that the Lord answers our prayers according to His good and gracious will. We pray knowing that the Lord may indeed allow us to suffer for a little while in this life to accomplish an even greater purpose. As we pray, we know that God is God that He loves us and He is always with us and He hears us.
II. Because He Was Heard.
We know that God our Father hears us because He heard His Son. God hears us because His Son submitted to His Fathers will. He hears us because His Son was obedient to His Father even to death on the cross. In the Garden of Gethsemane, our Lord submitted His life and will to the Father.
If there is anyone that should have been able to rub the Father’s lamp to receive blessings, honor and glory, it should have been Jesus. He was the beloved Son of God with whom the Father was well pleased. If there was ever a person that deserved to be free from suffering it would be the innocent Son of God. If we think that in our suffering God must be out to get us, then God must really have been out to get Jesus, sending Him who was innocent to the cross to suffer for other people sins. God was out to get him, so that we wouldn’t be gotten.
What kind of Father is that? A loving Father who knew that through His Sons suffering His great love could be poured out on all people so that there would be and end to suffering. Through His son’s suffering He would bless the world with endless blessing.
Jesus understood the Father’s will. He could have called 12 legions of angels to His defense. He could have spoken a single word and with it destroyed all His enemies reigning destruction and judgment upon the earth. He could have called forth His own blessings or ended His own suffering. But He didn’t. He fulfilled God’s will. Because of Jesus we know that God hears us. After all, Jesus is the answer to our prayers.
Is there any greater confirmation that God hears us than that He sent us our Savior, Jesus Christ – to die in our place, to put an end to our suffering and death? Our prayers for help are answered in Him. Are cries of desperation are answered in Him. Our tears of sorrow are wiped away by Him. For His sake God hears us. As we pray, there is no more waiting or wondering. God has blessed us through His Son and we receive more than three wishes. We have every blessing of God…possessed by us in the perspective of eternity…though now, for a little while we suffer, it is according to God’s greater good will and good intentions toward all people…He promises to be with us and promises to bless the world through us, even as we suffer, just as He blessed the world through the suffering and death of His Son.
There is a story of another little girl. This little girl was brought into the operating room of a hospital. The doctor leaned over the little girl and said, "Mary, now don’t worry, I am going to put you to sleep." The bright-eyed girl looked up from the table and said, "Well, if I am going to sleep I have to say my prayers. I always say my prayers before I go to sleep." In a flash she was on her knees with her hands folded. The operating team paused in wonder as she said her prayers. When she finished, she calmly laid down and went to sleep under the anesthesia. Days later they realized that the operation hadn’t been a success. The doctor came in to Mary and took her hand in his and said, "Mary, some people might say that your operation was not a success. In one way it isn’t, God wants you and will take you to his happy home, but in another way it is a success, Mary. When you prayed that day in the operating room, something happened to me. I went home and that night, because of your example, I said my prayers for the first time in 24 years. This morning, I went back to church and Mary, I want to thank you for bringing me back to God. Your lovely little prayer before the operation did that for me." We can see that through this girls suffering and through her prayers, god was accomplishing His even greater purpose.
Conclusion: As the time drew close for Jesus to die on the cross. Jesus knew people would hurt him. He knew there would be lots of pain. Jesus prayed with powerful cries and tears to his Father to save him from death. Because Jesus was God’s Son, he submitted to his Father. Jesus understood that he must obey the Father and suffer and die on the cross for our sins. He did this out of His great love for us and to end our suffering. Jesus submitted to His Father for us. God wants us to submit to him, submit to His will, even as we pray. Sometimes that is hard to do. We pray to God with tears and loud cries, just as Jesus did. Through God, who gave Him strength we too are given strength to live knowing that God is with us, as He was with Jesus. For Christ’s sake He hears us and gives us what we need, one day at a time. Amen!