getting out the WORD

the 10th sunday after pentecost

the PRAYER. . .

O God our defender, storms rage around and within us and cause us to be afraid. Rescue your people from despair, deliver your sons and daughters from fear, and preserve us in the faith of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

the READING. . .

And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea.

Matthew 14:22-33

the DEVOTION. . .

You, probably, wouldn’t be surprised if I told you Matthew talks about prayer in his gospel. But you might be, if I mentioned he doesn’t talk about it near as much as we’d expect. A handful of verses in the Sermon on the Mount. A half-dozen more scattered throughout the rest of the book. But the real shocker, for me, is that Jesus is, actually, pictured praying, only two times! Once, after supper. In the garden. In the night in which he was betrayed. And here, this week, when he goes up the mountain by himself!

Even then, we don’t know what happened, there on the mountaintop. Did he fall on his knees? Bow his head? Fold his hands? Matthew doesn’t say anything more about it. Just one verse. Only twenty-three words. Tucked away between feeding five thousand and walking on water.

It’s as if Jesus’ prayers weren’t what was important. As if praying wasn’t the reason he came, at all.  Maybe he didn’t come to be religious. Maybe he didn’t come to do religious things. Maybe, instead, he came to be with those who needed him. Like the crowd … in a deserted place … when the hour is late … with nothing to eat … Like the disciples … in a boat … battered by waves … far from land … with the wind against them … Maybe it wasn’t for the piety, but for the love!

Bob Barndt, pastor

Midland Lutheran Church
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