Alleluia! Christ is
risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
In the Name of the
Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Jesus prayed a lot.
Throughout the Gospels we are told how Jesus went away and prayed by
himself, how He prayed in the synagogues, and how he prayed at other
times as well. It would be nice to know all the things that Jesus
prayed for, but the problem is that there aren't enough books in the
world to contain all of Jesus' prayers. So we're thankful for the
prayers that we do have.
The most important
prayer that Jesus said was the Lord's Prayer, of course. And so we
pray that prayer often: we pray it every Sunday at church, we pray it
every Wednesday for chapel, but you can also pray the Lord's Prayer
more than that. In the Small Catechism, Luther suggests that we pray
the Lord's prayer eight times per day. One in the morning after we
wake up, one at night before we go to bed, and then before and after
all three meals of the day. Martin Luther loved that prayer, and so
has the church since the Lord gave it to us.
In today's
Scripture reading, we hear another important prayer of Jesus.
In that same hour [that the disciples came back to Jesus,] he
rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of
heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and
understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for
such was your gracious will.”
In this prayer,
Jesus is praying to the Father, just like He taught us to pray in the
Lord's Prayer. But in this prayer, Jesus is thanking
the Father for something. He is thanking the Father for what the
Father has revealed to little children.
I know that not all
of you are “little children” now, but you all once were,
and so the Father has revealed something to you. The Father has told
you about why Jesus came to earth. God has used your parents and
teachers and pastors to tell you this important news: that Jesus came
to die on the cross, and then rise from the dead.
But can a person
really rise from the dead? Not normally, right. But one person
could: Jesus. Jesus was dead. He died a terrible and painful death
by hanging on a cross. And then His friends laid His dead body in a
tomb. And then, on the third day, Jesus woke his dead body up and
walked right out of that tomb. That's amazing, that's a miracle.
That's the Good News that the Father has told you. And you can
believe it, because God said it.
And guess what?
Because you believe that, you will also be raised back to life like
Jesus. One day, Jesus will come back here (it could be today, it
could be tomorrow, it could be a thousand or million years from now,
we don't know), but whenever that day is, everyone who believes in
Jesus will also be raised from the dead like Jesus.
Even you, little
child (and older child), even you will be raised from the dead. This
is what Jesus thanked the Father about that day. He was thinking of
you, and He was thanking the Father that you believe these things.
In the name of
+Jesus. Amen.
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