In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The main theme for the sixth Sunday of Easter, which is called “Rogate,” and that means “to ask,” is the theme of prayer. This is a very appropriate topic for us to discuss on Mother’s Day, not only because for many of us it was our moms who first showed us how to pray, but also because there are few people in this world that probably pray more than mothers do for their children. I can still remember how my mom told me once that she prayed every night before bed that her four boys would find good Christian women to marry and that when we got older, we wouldn’t wander away from the faith. I thank God for giving me a mom that prayed that for me, and now I pray it for my own kids too.

Prayer is a wonderful gift that comes from the Lord. Jesus even tells is in our Gospel lesson today from John chapter 16 that the reason why God gave it to us was so that we would have joy. As Christ says in verse 24 of our text “Ask and you will receive that your joy may be full.” Prayer isn’t supposed to be something that causesus anxiety, it’s supposed to be something that takes it away. And yet, in order for that to happen, we also need to understand how to do it in the right kind of way.

The right kind of way to pray, according to God’s Word, is in Jesus’ Name. Again, as Jesus says in our text today, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in My Name, He will give it to you.” But what exactly does it mean to pray in the Name of Jesus?

Certainly, praying in Jesus’ Name doesn’t just mean that you end your prayers with those exact words. If you notice not even the Lord’s Prayer includes the exact phrase “in Jesus’ Name.” But that, of course, doesn’t mean that it’s a bad prayer. In fact, the Lord’s prayer is the best prayer of all. It’s a perfect prayer, because it includes every possible thing that we could ever ask for from God and summarizes all of it for us succinctly. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we can have confidence that were praying correctly, because it’s literally the word of God. That’s how every good prayer starts. It doesn’t start with our own ideas or our own wisdom. It starts with the wisdom of God, which is given to us in His Holy Word.

Praying in Jesus’ Name also doesn’t mean using God’s Name as some kind of magic formula to get whatever you want. There was a very popular movement not too long ago in our country, called the “name it and claim it movement,” which taught this exact thing. Rich television personalities maintained that if you prayed in Jesus’ Name, and you believe in what you were praying about, you could get anything. If you wanted to be rich, God will bless you with lots of money. If you wanted to get cured of some disease, you could get that too. So long as you had enough faith, meaning so long as you wanted it bad enough, if you used Jesus’ Name, in just the right way, you could get it.

But that’s not what it means to pray in Jesus’ Name. We have all kinds of examples from the Bible of people trying to use Jesus’ Name for that purpose, but still not getting what they asked for. For example, in the book of James, James tells us in James chapter 4 that “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” We shouldn’t expect God to give us things that we want to use for sinful purposes. What kind of a good God would do that? Or what about the story of the sons of Sceva from Acts chapter 19? Do you remember that one? That’s when a couple of Jewish exorcists tried to use Jesus’ Name to cast out a demon, but because they didn’t actually believe in him, the demon jumped on top of them and overpowered them all. So, using Jesus’ Name to try and get things, or thinking that you can trick God into giving you stuff if you want it bad enough, isn’t what praying in the Name of Jesus is about. 

What it’s about is praying for things in faith. And praying is faith is not about getting God to do the things that you think are best, it’s about receiving whatever God gives knowing that His will is best. It’s about trusting in the fact that because God has already given you the forgivness of sins in Jesus, He will certainly give you whatever else you need too. You can be confident that God is never holding out on you, because He didn’t even hold back His own Son from you. As Paul says in Romans 8, “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not with Him gracious give us all things.”

The people that give the impression that our praying or our believing by itself cause things to happen, have it exactly backwards. Faith doesn’t do. It receives. And prayer doesn’t do anything either, at least not in that sense. Good prayer recognizes that God is the One who does everything. That’s the reason why we’re praying! Because we can’t do anything without Him. “Apart from me,” Jesus says, “you can do nothing.” And that’s what praying in his Name is all about. 

Besides asking for things in faith, praying in Jesus’ Name also means praying according to God’s Word. True faith rest in the promises that God’s actually made, not in promises that He hasn’t. How would we even know what sort of things God wants us to have, if we didn’t have His Word? We don’t just look around and think about the things that we want. We have to look at the Scriptures. That’s where God speaks to us. That’s where the Holy Spirit guides us so that we don’t end up in the wrong place. When people try and look for signs in the world around them, and especially when they think about prayer as means to make those signs happen, they end up just interpreting them the way they want anyway. The use the façade of signs to legitimize whatever decision they’re making, even though it’s impossible to prove that the sign actually came from God. But our faith, and our prayers, aren’t supposed to be built on every changing signs. They’re supposed to be built upon the unchanging truth of God’s Word. Only then can we have confidence that we will receive the things for which we ask.

And just because it looks like we didn’t get the exact thing that we prayed for, that doesn’t mean that we didn’t. It certainly doesn’t mean that we didn’t have enough faith. Did Saint Paul not have faith in Jesus, when he pleaded with the Lord three times to remove the thorn that was in his flesh and God told him, “No.” Did King David not have faith in Jesus, when he prayed and fasted all night that his son wouldn’t die, and God did not let the baby get better? Did Moses not have faith in Jesus when He asked God to let him cross over into the promised land and instead the Lord only let him see it from a distance? And what about the prayer that Jesus Himself prayed in the garden of Gethsemane? In the mystery of His state of humiliation, our Lord prayed multiple times that if it were possible for the cup of His suffering to pass from Him, that God would take it away. Did that mean that Jesus did not have enough faith? Of course, it didn’t. Jesus had perfect faith. He completely trusted in the will of His Father at every single turn. And yet, Jesus still had to go to the cross and suffer for our sins.

Sometimes God answers our prayers in good ways that we can’t even see. Sometimes we ask for the wrong things without even knowing it and God gives us something better instead. Sometimes we are completely unaware until later on just how merciful and kind our Heavenly Father was to us when we came to Him asking for help. That’s because God always has the bigger picture in view. He sees every moment of our life at once, and He knows exactly what is best to actually bring us to our eternal home. Lots of times we think we know what is best, but we don’t. But God still does. He desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, and He works all things together for the good of those who love him. And when we pray for things with that perspective in mind, then it becomes easier to see how God actually does give us everything that we ask for in Jesus’ Name. 

Go back to those same examples. Yes, it's true that God did not take away the thorn from Saint Paul’s side, but He did give him something even better. God gave Paul the assurance of His grace. God reminded Paul how His power is made perfect in weakness so that Paul could continue to trust in the Lord and be saved. No, God did not let King David’s son get better from his sickness in this earthly life, but He did usher David’s son into everlasting life early. Remember what David said after the baby died, “He cannot come to me, but I will go to him.” It’s true, God did not let Moses go into the promised land, but He did take Moses directly to the promised land of heaven. Which is better, a piece of land in the Middle East that people are still fighting over or a place in our Father’s House where there are many rooms? And no, God did not take away the cup of His wrath from Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, but by letting His only begotten Son drink it, God satisfied His wrath over sins of the whole world and made it possible for everyone who believes in Him to be saved.

And just like God did those things for all of them, we know that He will do the same kinds things for us too. We know that not because we’re better than any of them, or because we deserve it more, but because just like them, we’re also God’s dear children. In the waters of our Baptism, God adopted us into His family, and poured His Spirit in our hearts crying “Abba, Father.” He made us part of His house, and gave us all the rights and privileges of true sons and daughters. As Jesus says elsewhere, “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg will instead give him a scorpion? 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!”

God always answers the prayers that we pray in faith. Even when we don’t know what to pray for, and even when we unknowingly pray for things that could harm us, as it says in Romans chapter 8, the Holy Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. God takes our feeble and imperfect prayers and He polishes them up, and then He provides the perfect response to them. He does that not by giving us necessarily what we always expect, but by giving us exactly what we need the most in order to remain faithful to Him to the end.

Prayer is a good topic to talk about on any day, but it’s especially good for us to think about on Mother’s Day. Few people pray as much as moms do for their kids. They worry about them all the time. But Jesus tells us in our text today that when we pray to God in the right way it’s lead to our joy. When we pray in Jesus’ Name, meaning, when we pray in faith, trusting in God’s Word, then God uses our prayers to give us comfort. What could be more comforting to a mom who’s worried about her kids than the knowledge that Jesus died for them and God wants them to be saved? What could give her more peace of mind then knowing that we have a merciful God who proved that by offering up His own Son in our place? Moms, even if you can’t give certain things to your kids, God still can. And He loves them even more than you do. Remember that before you say your prayers at night. And remember that no matter what God gives, in the end, through faith Jesus, your joy will be complete.  In Jesus’ Name. Amen.