We speak
Elaine Poproski Download: Audio
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Notes:
At the end of the sermon, there is an opportunity to follow along a guided prayer journey. Please feel free to download your own copy of this Guided Prayer and use it in whatever way you would find most helpful.
Scripture:
Luke 5:15 – 16
The news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their illnesses. Read more…
Luke 6:12 – 13
Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. Read more…
Looking to Sunday
by Elaine Poproski
Prayer. It seems the most obvious place to start when talking about Spiritual Disciplines; it seems such a simple thing. What is prayer, after all, but talking and listening to God? And then we read things like this: Prayer ushers us into the Holy of Holies, where we bow before the deepest mysteries of the faith. [1]
There’s a moment in the story of Moses from before he became God’s messenger to Pharaoh, while he was still a shepherd. At this particular moment, Moses was wandering the desert with his flock. Suddenly he saw a bush on fire, burning but not consumed. He approached for a better look. God called out to him by name from the fire and Moses listened. He was on holy ground, in the presence of God Almighty, a raging fire that cannot be extinguished.
After the people had been freed from slavery in Egypt, they stood together at the base of a mountain. In Exodus we read that “there was thunder and lightning, as well as a thick cloud on the mountain, and a blast of a trumpet so loud that all the people who were in the camp trembled…and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, ‘You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die’” (Ex. 18: 16;19:18-19).
To be in the presence of God an be a terrifying thing. I talked about this last Sunday. We were reminded that God is described in the Bible as an all-consuming or devouring fire (Deut. 4:24, Heb. 12:29). We considered Hosea’s description of God as one who roars like a lion causing his children to tremble (Hosea 11:10). When Israel built their Temple in Jerusalem, there was at the furthest point, a small room closed off from all the others. This room was called the Holy of Holies. It was the place where once a year the high priest would enter and meet God. To enter at any other time, or for anyone else to enter, was certain death.
And then Jesus died on a cross. And the moment he died the curtain of the temple – that is the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from everything else – was torn in two, from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51). The God who dwelt within the Holy of Holies was no longer confined. The people who depended on their priests to speak to God on their behalf, were no longer constrained. God had not changed. God was still (and is still) the Holy One who met Moses in a burning bush, the God who was experienced by Israel as thunder and lightning and the blast of a trumpet. But because of Jesus we have changed. We who once could not approach God lest his holiness destroy us, now “approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16).
To approach the throne of grace is to pray. It is at one and the same time a simple and a difficult thing. It is also an essential thing for anyone who wants to know God, because it is in prayer that we meet God.
Over the coming 5 or 6 weeks we will be talking a lot about prayer. Hopefully we will also be practicing the things we talk about. As we begin this journey into prayer on Sunday, it may be helpful to spend some time ahead of Sunday considering your own thoughts and practices around prayer. Is prayer part of your life? Is it something you feel like you understand? Does it intimidate you? Have you ever experienced a direct answer to prayer? Is there anyone you can think of who you would describe as a great pray-er? What is it that makes that person a great pray-er?
[1] Richard J. Foster. (1988) Celebration of Discipline. (Revised ed.) SanFrancisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 19.