What God Bears--March 20, 2024

What God Bears--March 20, 2024

"In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission." [Hebrews 5:7]

We are always heard when we pray. Ours is the God who hears... always.  And at the very same time, ours is the God who bears our fiercest anger and most despairing doubts when we accuse God of not listening... or maybe of not even being there.

Sometimes, the answers to our prayers come through loud and clear--especially when the thing we prayed for happens just as we wanted.

Sometimes, the answer is harder to discern, because things don't go the way we wished them to go: the interviewers don't give you the job, the loved one doesn't respond to the treatment, the relationship goes unrepaired, or the answer on the pregnancy test isn't the one you were hoping for. In those times, it doesn't mean that you weren't heard. And it doesn't even necessarily mean that God's answer was a stern, "No," either. It may well be that God's answer is something more like, "I know this thing you are facing is awful and wrong and difficult. I hear you. And I am going to go through it with you. You will not be alone as you go through it. I will bear it alongside of you."

I think that's really important to remember, both so that we don't turn praying into baptized wishing, and so that we don't misunderstand what it means when our requests don't turn out the way we had wanted. And maybe we can learn something from Jesus on this. In this passage that many of us heard read this past Sunday, the writer of Hebrews here is working through the idea that Jesus is like a high priest who interceded for the needs of the people.  And he notes that Jesus himself prayed--often passionately--during his years walking Palestine. He prayed for others, too, and not just for himself. There he is at Lazarus' tomb, praying to his Abba before calling the dead man back to life. Or there's Jesus in the upper room, asking for God to protect his disciples, both the ones in the room with him at the time, and those who would come to believe through their witness (that includes you and me!). Again, in the garden before his arrest, he was praying for their strength. And even as he bled out on the cross, Jesus was praying for the very ones who had been mocking and torturing him, as he prayed, "Father, forgive them..." In all of those moments, we have every reason to believe that Jesus' prayers were heard with God acting as Jesus had wanted. Lazarus rises. The disciples live through Good Friday to become witnesses in all the world. And, yes, I dare to believe that even Jesus' executioners and the bloodthirsty crowd was forgiven.

And yet, there's also the very real matter of Jesus' prayer in the garden for himself... that seems to go differently. You know how the story goes: there, in the final hours and moments before the lynch mob and local law enforcement arrived on the scene in Gethsemane, Jesus was praying, "Father, let this cup pass away from me." In other words, "God, I don't want to have to go through this--and you are in a position that could prevent my death. Help me!" And you probably also know the rest of that prayer concludes, "Yet, not my will, but yours, be done." This is the kind of scene that probably makes devout Christians antsy, because it sure sounds like Jesus' will is at odds with God the Father's will at this point (which is difficult enough for us to deal with). But knowing that the story does lead Jesus to the very thing he wants to avoid? Well, that complicates our theology of prayer, doesn't it?

We're used to thinking that prayers are either Yes for good little boys and girls, or No for the badly behaved or wrong requests. But here's Jesus--who is simply praying that a terrible injustice not be done to him--who is not praying a "bad" thing, and who isn't "wicked" or "immoral" or "bad" himself, and he's praying for something that we know he doesn't get. He prays for the experience of suffering and death not to have to happen... and we know he goes to the cross anyway. What does that mean? And what can it possibly mean that, in the words of Hebrews, "he was heard" as he prayed "to the one who was able to save him from death," even though Jesus did still go to death? What does it mean about prayer if you can be perfectly sinless (as we confess Jesus to be), have all the right theology (as we believe Jesus had), and still not get the thing you were praying for?

I want to suggest that this is one of those times where it's important to remember that not getting the thing we prayed for isn't necessarily a "No!" from God, but sometimes it's, "I hear you. I know this is hard. I'll go through it with you." God, after all, bears deep loss from the cross as well--God not only knows what it is do die in Christ's death, but God also knows what it is to lose a Son in those same terrible hours on a Friday afternoon. God knows what it is like to bear the accusation of being a sinner and a blaspheme from Jesus' side of the experience, but God also knows what it is like to bear the accusation of having abandoned an innocent sufferer--and those words of accusation come from Jesus himself as he dies quoting Psalm 22, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" God knows what it is to suffer through Good Friday--in fact, God knows the pain inside and out, from both the earthly and heavenly vantage point.

Sometimes I think we don't consider what it is like from God's vantage point when things are not going to go the way we might have prayed--and to know that God is both still committed to going through the difficult stuff with us, AND still willing to bear all of our angry accusations that God must have abandoned us if we don't get what we want in our prayers. God is willing to bear our heartbroken laments and the questions that so often begin, "If you really loved me, God, you would have done..." God is willing to take all that misdirected fury, and still to walk through the difficult things with us.  To that, the cross bears powerful witness.

I know that may seem cold comfort if we have our hearts set on getting things the way we want them. And I know it may make us re-examine our understanding of prayer if even Jesus didn't always get what he prayed for. But maybe it is worth asking, too, if we really do believe that God's presence with us, in every situation, is enough. If we really dare to trust that the God who gives us daily bread is going through our deepest struggles with us... if we really have faith in the claim that God bore suffering on the cross... the maybe we can also accept that God's presence with us through our times of suffering will be enough, too. It doesn't make the suffering we will bear less real, and it doesn't mean that we are being punished or that God demands our suffering for some part of the divine plan. Instead, it means, simply, that God's answer, is "I hear you. And I am going through it with you."

If you know what it is like to have been loved through a difficult time by someone who said, "I hear you, and I share your hurt. I'll face it with you," then you already know that it is enough to know that God chooses to bear our struggles and sorrows with us, too.

God really is enough.

Lord God, hear our prayers. Attend to our needs. Go with us into the struggles of this day. We need you to do nothing less.