1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, who fills us with the unction to speak with our Father in the cross words of prayer. Amen. Cross words. We’re in the midst of a sermon series looking at the Six Chief Parts of Luther’s Small Catechism. And the big point in this series is that all of these chief teachings of the Christian faith are really about the cross of Jesus Christ. The Ten Commandments: cross bones. The Apostles’ Creed: cross eyes. And now, the third Chief Part, the Lord’s Prayer. We are going to speak of the Lord’s Prayer — and really of God’s gift of prayer in general — as “cross words,” as we focus on Matt. 6:5-15.
2. The Cross Has Given Us the Privilege to Pray to God as “Our Father.” When we speak of prayer, it may be that a beloved hymn comes to mind. In our Lutheran Service Book, it is hymn number 770. Lutherans have found courage, strength, and comfort in this hymn. That hymn was written by Joseph M. Scriven in 1855, with biblical roots running deep into John 15 and 16. You know these words well: “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry ev’rything to God in prayer!” (LSB 770:1). It’s an incredible privilege to be able to use the grace of language to draw near the throne of grace in prayer. But why do we have this privilege?
3. In our text from Matthew 6, Jesus directs his hearers not to pray like the Gentiles. But here is the sobering truth: we are Gentiles — foreigners cut off from our heavenly Father by our sin. When Adam and Eve sinned, and when we joined them in that sin, we threw up an iron curtain between ourselves and our heavenly Father. We unplugged the router, so to speak. In an emergency, even 911 would not work. As long as we are in sin, we have no access to the Father.
4. But then Jesus says, “Pray . . . like this: ‘Our Father’” (Matthew 6:9). That is Jesus’ loud announcement that God is, as Luther says, our dear Father again. Jesus reconciled us to the Father — by his death on the cross, which took away our sin. That sin was the wall that stood between us and God. When Jesus teaches us to pray the Lord’s Prayer, these are cross words — words we can only speak to God because of the cross.
5. It is in the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus teaches us how best to use this privilege — words to glorify the Father and to ask his blessings. Jesus teaches us the content of prayer pleasing to the heart of the Father: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:9–13).
6. The Lord’s Prayer says it all. We acknowledge God’s holiness, call for the advance of his kingdom, and seek the fulfillment of his will on earth. We thank him for daily physical bread to feed our bodies, as well as the daily spiritual bread of forgiveness. We plead for deliverance from our enemy, even as we confess God’s loving kindness in revealing his Son. All these things that we ask, we ask because Jesus’ death on the cross has reconciled us to the Father.
7. Part of the genius of Martin Luther is to link the proclamation of cross words in prayer with the obedience of the cross bones in the Commandments. After all, prayer is one of the foundational tenets of Christian life. Luther writes: “So you see that in this petition [the First Petition, ‘Hallowed be thy name’] we pray for exactly what God demands in the Second Commandment. We pray that His name not be taken in vain to swear, curse, lie, deceive, and so on, but be used well for God’s praise and honor” (LC III 45). These are cross words in which we clearly see the cross-play of all the Six Chief Parts. Truly, the cross of Calvary, the resurrection of Jesus, and the honor of our Father remain at the very center of prayer.
8. We’re also reminded in the Lord’s Prayer of the privilege we have to steward the mysteries of our Father — one of which is forgiveness. Forgiveness, earned by Jesus on the cross, enables us to stand before the Father and pray, confessing our own sin. Then it is a great honor to speak the cross words of forgiving the sins others commit against us — modeling our Lord Jesus in the literal cross words of prayer uttered by our Savior himself from the wood of Calvary: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Jesus reminds us of this grace directly: “If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14–15).
9. It’s fitting that as we go through the challenges and celebrations of life, we are “caught” using cross words to speak with our Father, seeking his mercy and grace. The context of Jesus teaching the Lord’s Prayer — in the middle section of the Sermon on the Mount — is his instruction about holiness, and the danger of being double-minded or hypocritical in one’s piety.
10. When Jesus cautions against praying like the Gentiles, he says, “Do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words” (Matthew 6:7). Do you see the error? They did not understand that prayer is cross words. They thought they had to make themselves heard. But Jesus’ death on the cross has already made God eager to hear us. We are reconciled, so that as Luther says — “with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their dear father” (Small Catechism, Lord’s Prayer, Introduction). God has claimed us through the baptismal water and filled us with the Holy Spirit, who anoints us to pray, just one of his many mercies.
11. You see, prayer — when not viewed as an awesome privilege won through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross — can become a crass exercise of pride. “You must not be like the hypocrites,” Jesus also says. “For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others” (Matthew 6:5). Look at me. I’m so holy, standing here with my head bowed. Listen to me. I know all the right words, and I can deploy them at great length and effect.
12. Our Lord warns us not to be like them. In fact, Jesus says they have already received their reward. Instead, our hearts long for the approval that comes from God alone. In faithful obedience we do what Jesus has commanded. We go into our private space, and we seek our Heavenly Father, praying psalms, hymns, and Scripture. We rest in the knowledge that God is listening. We don’t need to besiege him with an avalanche of words, because he already knows what we need (Matthew 6:8). That means we can spend as much time listening as we do speaking. This is the very admonition of the priest Eli to the boy Samuel, who hears the Lord calling in the night. The final time Samuel hears the voice of the Lord, Eli instructs him to reply simply: “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears” (1 Samuel 3:9).
13. At this point it’s good to debunk some wrong teaching about prayer. There are those who say we need only ask the Lord for something once. But, the Bible doesn’t support this teaching. What a friend we have in Jesus and what a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer again and again! To prove this, we need to go to the Garden of Gethsemane with our Lord on Maundy Thursday. As Matthew 26:36–46, says our Savior’s soul is sorrowful and he asks the disciples to watch and pray with him. He goes and prays that the cup will pass from him, but acknowledges the will of the Father. He returns and finds the disciples sleeping, wakes them, and goes back a second and a third time — with the same words again. To those who say we can’t make the same request of the Father multiple times in prayer, I would simply point out that Jesus did. This is praying with cross words. What a friend we have in Jesus!
14. The devil will challenge us as we use our cross words. His agenda is to distract us with lies to keep us from approaching the throne of grace to honor our Father and make our petitions known. The Apostle Paul knew Satan’s distractions well, and he wrote in Philippians 4: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6–7).
15. Paul is saying: when you’re confronted with the fiery darts of the enemy, when you are besieged by temptation on every side, when the enemy is trying to convince you that our Father doesn’t hear you — don’t get worked up; don’t be anxious. Remember the friend we have in Jesus. Use your cross words. Take it to the Lord in prayer. And the the peace and wholeness of our Father’s grace and love — will rest, rule, and abide in your heart, relieve the distress, and set you once again to singing.
16. We have trials and temptations; there is trouble everywhere. We will never be discouraged — we take it to the Lord in prayer. We are weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care. The precious Savior is still our refuge; we take it to the Lord in prayer. Our friends may despise and forsake us — and so we use our cross words and take it to the Lord in prayer. We know that in his arms he’ll take and shield us, and that we’ll find our solace there (cf. LSB 770:2–3). Make it so, Lord, in your name: Father; your only-begotten Son, Jesus; and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Now may the peace of Christ that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds through cross words unto life everlasting. Amen.
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