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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
Did you have to teach your children to ask for things? Sure, we teach children how to ask for things—maybe teaching them to stand still and tall, to make eye contact, and then to ask politely (Grose)—but did you have to teach your children to ask in the first place? Did your parents have to teach you to ask? Or, does parents’ giving things to their children somehow lead to children’s asking their parents for things? In the case of us children of God’s asking our Heavenly Father, at least one commentator says that today’s Gospel Reading shows that prayer begins with God’s giving and then moves to our asking (Just, CPR 32:3, pp.27-28). Considering today’s Gospel Reading, this morning we realize that “The Heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him”. Let me repeat that: “The Heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him”
In today’s Gospel Reading, when Jesus Himself had finished praying in a certain place, one of His disciples asked Him to teach them to pray. And, essentially answering that request, Jesus not only gave them a version of the Lord’s Prayer similar to but also different from the version of the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus had given on another occasion (Matthew 6:9-13), but Jesus also then arguably used two rhetorical questions and His parable-like answers to those questions in order to teach about the nature of the Giver to whom we pray. If not the whole passage, then at least the second question-and-answer seems to climax with Jesus’s exclamation (ESV): “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
Maybe no father among us gives either a serpent to his son asking for a fish or a scorpion to his son asking for an egg, but we probably can think of examples of “bad” gifts. Maybe under certain circumstances we ourselves have even given a “gag” gift, or a “white elephant” gift, or, as I recently reminded one of my cousins, a wedding gift consisting of a new laundry basket full of canned goods, including some cans of dog and cat food, all with the labels removed. Well, maybe we at least know how to give good gifts, as the Lord says, even if we may not always actually give good gifts as we should. For, as the Lord also says, we are evil. We may not always ask for what we should ask. We may not pray as often as we should. Or, we even may not pray at all. We need to be taught to pray! If we do not sin in those ways, then we sin in countless other—sometimes unspeakable—ways, for we all are sinful by nature, and so we deserve both death here and now and torment in hell for eternity, unless we repent.
While we were still completely spiritually-dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1, 5), God sent His Holy Spirit to call and so enable us to repent: to turn in sorrow from our sins, to trust God to forgive our sins, and to want to stop sinning. More than we need and should pray for good government, more than we need and should pray for peace in our families, and more than we need and should pray for a loved one’s or our own health, we need and should pray for the forgiveness of sins, and for the salvation and the eternal life that come with the forgiveness of sins (confer Arndt, ad loc Luke 11:4, p.296). Somewhat like parents’ teaching their children how to ask and for what to ask, the Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to be forgiven. When we repent, then God forgives us. God forgives our not giving good gifts as we should; God forgives our not asking for what we should ask; God forgives our not praying as often as we should and even our not having prayed at all. God forgives all our sins, whatever our sins might be. God forgives us for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Parenting experts say that parents’ teaching their children to ask for help is important (Magination Press), and somewhat similarly, our God must teach us to ask for help. Out of His love, mercy, and grace, our Heavenly Father sent both His Son to die for us and His Holy Spirit to call and enable us to believe in Him. We by nature are evil, but God by nature is good. God gives and gives and gives. God does not give for fear of being shamed by the community, but God gives because of Who He is. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Colossians 2:6-19), in Jesus Christ the whole fullness of that giving deity dwells bodily, and He took the debt of our sins and paid for it in full on the cross (confer John 19:30). In Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, God has done everything for us and for our salvation. In God’s promising that everyone who asks receives and that everyone who seeks finds and that to everyone who knocks it will be opened, God even creates the faith that turns to Him in prayer for salvation, and salvation arguably is what Jesus has in mind in speaking about asking, seeking, and knocking (Bertram, TDNT, 3:955). That salvation comes, the Son of God essentially says, as the Heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.
The Holy Spirit is given through the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments: Holy Baptism, individual Holy Absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar (Augsburg Confession V:2). In Holy Baptism, as we heard in the Epistle Reading, we who were dead in our trespasses are made alive together with Christ, buried with Him and raised with Him. Especially at the Baptismal Font, we receive the Spirit of adoption as sons by Whom we cry out to our Heavenly Father (Romans 8:15). When we privately confess to our pastor the sins that we know and feel in our hearts, our pastor forgives our sins in the Name of that same Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And, as the listener in the Gospel Reading essentially asked for and received table fellowship with his friend inside his house with his children, so we, at the table that is this Altar and its Rail—by way of bread that is Christ’s Body and wine that is Christ’s Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar—have fellowship with and forgiveness from Him Who is a friend of sinners like us (Matthew 11:19; Luke 7:34).
What have you asked God for lately? In today’s Old Testament Reading, Abraham “almost strain[s] the limits of respect” for God in his bold and persistent dialogue asking God to spare Sodom for the sake of as few as ten righteous people in the city (Nocent, 4:337). In the end, the place was destroyed, and only Abraham’s nephew Lot and his two daughters ultimately were spared. God’s answers to our prayers for earthly things may not always be what we want, but His answers are always good, far more than the good gifts that earthly fathers give to their children of the things they need (Foerster, TDNT, 5:579-580). And, as we seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, the earthly things that we need—such as food, drink, and clothing—are added to us (Matthew 6:33), for God, Who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will also with Him graciously give us all things (Romans 8:32). Those things come as answers to the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus teaches us to pray. And, when we do not know what to pray for as we ought, the Holy Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words (Romans 8:26).
Earthly parents often also teach their children to say “Thank you” after they receive what they asked for, and, at home on one of my doors, I have a poster that I have had for a long time with a poetic reminder to say “Thank you” for what has already been received before asking for more. When “The Heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him”, the Holy Spirit leads us to give thanks and praise to our Heavenly Father for the joy and peace that we have in His Son Jesus Christ. As we did in today’s Psalm (Psalm 138; antiphon: v.3), so even now we say: “On the day I called, you answered me; my strength of soul you increased”, “I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart; … I sing your praise.” We give Him thanks and sing His praise, now and forever.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +