We look at recent news headlines about prison abuse in Iraq, wondering how such things could happen. We may consider hard questions about our impact on the environment trying to determine if what are seen as economic needs can justify the effects. We see a radical shift in the cultural discussion about the definition of marriage and what constitutes a family. We find ourselves avoiding certain topics of discussion in some groups or relationships because we know that we have very differing and strongly held positions of belief, and we see relationships close down or get cut off. All of this may be seen as a cause of deep personal questioning and grief. In times of moral ambiguity or times of strident polarization, in times of moral outrage and times of change that threaten what had been relied on in the past, how does one pray?
We want desperately to pray in a way that will be effective and beneficial for the suffering we experience. We forget that it is not our prayers that are effective. It is God who is effective.
Jesus said, “I will do whatever you ask in my Name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my Name you ask me for anything, I will do it.” John 14:13-14
Let us consider what it might mean to pray in the Name of Jesus. It is, of course, not simply adding the Name at the end of a prayer. It is to pray from the place of identity in Jesus/Yeshua, recognizing one’s baptism as immersion into that Name. The Name itself means salvation – Yeshua in the Hebrew, salvation, that which liberates and brings wholeness and life. The Name itself contains the answer to our prayers.
With the Prayer of the Lamb, we offer each utterance, each silent mental recitation, into that Name, Yeshua/Jesus. The Prayer is a simple offering without any agenda other than trusting in that mercy which is already poured out to us, around us, over us, and through us, that mercy which flows abundantly and spontaneously from the Mercy Seat. As we sit with the Prayer or let it roll through our awareness in the midst of activity, like beads through our fingers, the heart opens to the healing and transformative medicine of Divine Mercy. Even as we pray for others, we ourselves find benefit and blessing. To whatever degree we are blessed, so also is all creation blessed, for we are not the agents of blessing, but the reflection. We come to realize that we are the place where intercession is occurring, radiant space whose radiance can be perceived as light reflected from the Source, from the Creator.
One might notice in all this that questions do not necessarily get answered, even though suffering may be transformed into reconciliation or healing or new life. One cannot pray the Prayer of the Lamb in order to prove or determine who is right and who is wrong or what is the correct way to believe. The Prayer of the Lamb is a prayer of the heart, not the head, not the mind. It is an act of devotion in which the heart and will are surrendered to Yeshua. It is an act of devotion that acknowledges that the One who is effective is the Source of Life itself, our Creator, the One who breathed life into us in the beginning and who sustains each breath that enters our lungs moment by moment, the One who breathes us.
It may seem hard to offer intercession through the Prayer of the Lamb without looking for a particular outcome or answer to dilemma. The place of trusting may not be comfortable. We are kept on that existential edge. We cannot own an answer, cannot possess it, thinking that this will settle the matter once and for all, immutable. We are called and drawn to trust and knowing that the more we know, the more we realize that we do not know. My thought is that we might leave the knowing to Yeshua, and simply see what gets revealed moment by moment. Sitting in silence with the Prayer of the Lamb is a good way to do this.
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