When Christ Prayed For Us

Photo by Stephanie LeBlanc on Unsplash

I want you to think of a moment when you have felt deeply cared for. Perhaps you felt love in an embrace from a dear friend, partner, or spouse. Maybe it was in the receiving of generosity, hospitality, or warmth of a smile. Or simply an engaging moment of eye contact in a supermarket or mall that reminded you of your humanity—that amidst the mechanics of everyday life, someone noticed you. They saw you.

Beautifully, in the Christian faith there are many ways in which we can receive and offer care. I’ve been thinking recently about the role that prayer can play in this area.

Of course, like most good things, prayer can be misused or abused. I’ve had the misfortune of being in prayer meetings where people use prayer meetings as a place to vent frustration: “Lord, I pray for my friend Mia. God, you know how arrogant and mean she can be. Please forgive her Lord, despite the fact that she has been an awful friend to me and to others.”

Gossip, too, has a way of masquerading as prayer too: “Father, we pray for Matt and Julia. You know they are having a lot of trouble in their marriage right now. But Lord, you do know how Julia has not been taking care of herself, so maybe it makes sense that Matt has had wandering eyes. Help them, Lord.”

If you have not been in those kinds of prayer meetings, consider it a small mercy.

The sad truth for most of us is that prayer, or the thought of people praying for us, can put a frighteningly bitter tase in our mouth.

But I’ve also felt the power of compassion in hearing someone pray for me. One poignant memory for me took place just a few months after my father died. I was meeting with my uncle and I remember him speaking words of kindness to me and also praying for me. In his praying for me, I felt deeply loved.

Despite the many reasons in which praying for someone can go wrong, I keep coming back to the thought of how prayer can be an act of care. There are several references in the gospels showing Jesus taking time out of his schedule to pray.

Yet, for all the times in which we read of Jesus praying, there are only a few select moments in which we know what he actually said in his prayers. When I’ve thought more deeply about this, I have wondered what Jesus would talk about in his prayers and how he might have prayed.