How fully does His prayer on the cross for His enemies synchronise with all He taught about love to our enemies, and with mercy and forgiveness to those who have trespassed against us! “Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Apologising for His murderers and praying for them, while they were jeering and mocking Him at His death pains and their hands were reeking with His blood! What amazing generosity, pity and love!
Again, take another one of the prayers on the cross. How touching the prayer and how bitter the cup! How dark and desolate the hour as He exclaims, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” This is the last stroke that rends in twain His heart, more exquisite in its bitterness and its anguish and more heart-piercing than the kiss of Judas. All else was looked for, all else was put in His book of sorrows. But to have His Father’s face withdrawn, God-forsaken, the hour when these distressing words escaped the lips of the dying Son of God! And yet how truthful He is! How childlike we find Him! And so when the end really comes, we hear Him again speaking to His Father: “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit. And having said this, he gave up the ghost.”
X OUR LORD’S MODEL PRAYER
_What satisfaction must it be to learn from God Himself with what words and in what manner, He would have us pray to Him so as not to pray in vain! We do not sufficiently consider the value of this prayer; the respect and attention which it requires; the preference to be given to it; its fulness and perfection; the frequent use we should make of it; and the spirit which we should bring with it. “Lord, teach us how to pray.”_—ADAM CLARK.
Jesus gives us the pattern prayer in what is commonly known as “The Lord’s Prayer.” In this model, perfect prayer He gives us a law form to be followed, and yet one to be filled in and enlarged as we may decide when we pray. The outlines and form are complete, yet it is but an outline, with many a blank, which our needs and convictions are to fill in.
Christ puts words on our lips, words which are to be uttered by holy lives. Words belong to the life of prayer. Wordless prayers are like human spirits; pure and high they may be, but too ethereal and impalpable for earthly conflicts and earthly needs and uses. We must have spirits clothed in flesh and blood, and our prayers must be likewise clothed in words to give them point and power, a local habitation, and a name.
This lesson of “The Lord’s Prayer,” drawn forth by the request of the disciples, “Lord, teach us to pray,” has something in form and verbiage like the prayer sections of the Sermon on the Mount. It is the same great lesson of praying to “Our Father which art in Heaven,” and is one of insistent importunity. No prayer lesson would be complete without it. It belongs to the first and last lessons in prayer. God’s Fatherhood gives shape, value and confidence to all our praying.
He teaches us that to hallow God’s name is the first and the greatest of prayers. A desire for the glorious coming and the glorious establishment of God’s glorious kingdom follows in value and in sequence the hallowing of God’s name. He who really hallows God’s name will hail the coming of the Kingdom of God, and will labour and pray to bring that kingdom to pass and to establish it. Christ’s pupils in the school of prayer are to be taught diligently to hallow God’s name, to work for God’s kingdom, and to do God’s will perfectly, completely and gladly, as it is done in Heaven.