What is prayer? Talking to God. That’s it. Prayer is talking to God. He talks to us through Holy Scripture—His blessed Word, and we talk to Him in prayer. As we meditate on today’s Old Testament, Gospel, and Epistle readings, what things does our Lord want us to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest concerning prayer?

The event of the Old Testament Reading from the book of Numbers—the third book of the Bible—takes place during the desert wandering of the Israelites following their deliverance from slavery in Egypt. As they—and we—have been so often prone to do, they became discontent with the Lord’s goodness to them. The Lord had shown His great love for them by miraculously providing water and food in the wilderness. His blessings were never good enough for the people. They soon grumbled that God had some kind of diabolical, ulterior motive of saving them from Egypt just to kill them in the desert. They even called the manna “worthless food.”

So, God shows Himself as the kind of God they accused Him of being. He sent deadly, poisonous snakes into the Israelite camp so that they find out what dying in the wilderness really looks like.

As the snakes begin to bite and kill the people, the Israelites realize their accusation against the Lord was totally wrong. They said to Moses, “Pray to the Lord, that He takes away the serpents from us.” They confessed their sin, pleading with the Lord to forgive and save them. He did. Just as our heavenly Father had a plan to save all sinners by means of Jesus’ being lifted upon the cross, so He foreshadowed that plan by telling Moses to put a bronze snake on a pole. As snake-bit people of Israel looked at the bronze serpent to receive salvation, so sin-bit people look to Christ Jesus to receive salvation.

God desires that we pray to Him, confessing our sin and seeking His forgiveness, because He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. God seeks to save.

The event of the Gospel reading takes place on the night when Jesus was betrayed, shortly after Jesus and the disciples celebrated the Passover in which Jesus instituted His Supper.

Christ Jesus knows that He’s soon to die on the cross, rise from the dead on the third day, and then ascend into heaven forty days after that. He’s preparing the disciples for all of these things. The mood of the evening is somber. The disciples are greatly confused, not understanding everything that’s about to unfold. They keep pledging their life-or-death allegiance to Jesus—as we all hope to do. Although Jesus has told them that they’ll abandon Him during His darkest moment. He says, “The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered.” The best way I can say it is that a cloud of uncertainty has filled the room.

Jesus answers the uncertainty with such a comforting statement: “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” Despite the storms, turmoil, and tribulation surrounding each one of you gathered here today, you have Jesus which means you have peace. He overcomes the world. He overcomes all the storms, turmoil, and tribulation you must endure.

Because Jesus has overcome the world by His death and resurrection, you may go to your heavenly Father in prayer. “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” It’s not that if we ask God for whatever we want, He’ll give it to us like He’s some kind of divine vending machine. As we meditate upon what our Lord has told us in His Word, our prayers begin to reflect that, and we begin to ask more and more for those things that He has promised to us, or those things that have eternal consequences. As our minds are transformed by God’s Word, so our prayers are also transformed. The weighted balance between prayers for worldly things or eternal things may begin to shift a bit as God’s Word transforms priorities.

Jesus has overcome the world—the devil and the world tried to destroy His plans of saving sinners, but they didn’t succeed. Christ Jesus died for our sins and didn’t stay dead. Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

He overcame the world, but He doesn’t hate the world. “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.” Paul says, “God our Savior… desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all.” God’s desire is that all people on earth have their eyes opened to the truth that Jesus is the Savior from sin, death, hell, and the devil, so that through faith in Christ Jesus all come into eternal salvation.

Therefore, as the body of Christ—who overcame the world—we don’t hate the world. We see in the world sinners like us for whom Christ Jesus shed His blood. We see fellow ransomed who are blind to their eternal Savior. We see people loved by God who are enslaved to their unbelief. We see people for whom we can pray.

So for all people who live on earth, we can make supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings. We can pray for the salvation of others. We can thank God for the good we see despite the fallen status of creation. We can pray for our governing leaders, that the decisions they make are God-pleasing and truly for the good of the people as our Lord defines good. We can pray for the peace of the world through Christ Jesus in whom we have peace. Amen.