Listen

S. Easter 6.25 John 16:23-33

‘In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, since you have loved me and have believed that I came from God…’

What is Jesus talking about here?

Well; Jesus is picking up right where we left off last Sunday when he says we’ll have sorrow now—not seeing him for ‘a little while’, but then we’ll see him again, and that joy no one can ever take away.

Today, Jesus continues (he’s speaking these words in the pre-dawn hours of Good Friday on his way to the Garden of Gethsemane) “in that day [the day when we see him again] you will ask nothing of me. Amen, Amen, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive that your joy may be full”.

What does it mean to “ask the Father in Jesus’ name”?

That it puzzles us a little bit is OK. Jesus himself says that he is speaking these things in “figures of speech” and the hour is coming when he no longer will use figures of speech but will tell us plainly of the Father. The disciples think: “This is the Day!” The hour is here, now; the speech is clear, and because it’s so clear, now we believe! But Jesus suggests, rather strongly, that hour has not yet come; so they don’t really understand, nor believe quite as strongly as they imagine…

Jesus is clear “that hour” comes after he ‘has gone away a little while’ and returned. He won’t go away until he dies on the cross. It’s only after his return from that hour of darkness and death on Golgotha that he can stop using figures of speech.

So what kind of figure of speech is “asking the Father in Jesus’ name”? The standard catechism answer—and it’s not wrong—is that “To ask in Jesus’ name is the same as asking according to his will.” I remember being taught that, in 8th grade catechism class at St. Paul’s Lutheran School in Decatur and thinking “Oh; OK! If I really want to get what I’m asking, I just need to tack on the words ‘In Jesus’ Name, Amen’ and like ‘Open Sesame’ or ‘Abracadabra!’, the magic words—‘In Jesus’ Name’—will get me what I want!”

And, uh… not exactly.

Simply put: “to ask the Father in Jesus’ name” means asking with faith that Jesus and the Father are One—though they’re distinct Persons they are the ONE GOD, and each Person is, by himself, fully God as the Athanasian Creed (correctly translated!) confesses.

Jesus had just cleared this up for Philip who asked an hour or so before, right after receiving the Lord’s Supper, “Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us.” And Jesus says “Philip! Have I been with you so long and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” As he said in John 10:30 a few weeks before: “I and the Father are One”.

‘Asking in Jesus’ name’ isn’t a magic code word that opens all doors. It’s first: calling Jesus by his real name which is…Yahweh, the One True God, who has, shockingly, come to earth incognito, in our flesh! Second: “Asking in Jesus’ Name” means believing—as many so-called Christians do not, like Arius and his followers in the ancient world, which include today even professors at our St. Louis seminary—looking at you, Joel Okamato!—that Jesus is just as fully God as the Father is God, that he and the Father are the same, one, true, Triune God.

Okamato put out 95 Theses in 2017 and one of them was “Jesus is not Yahweh. Only the Father is Yahweh” which is exactly what Arius himself said on the question. To deny Jesus is Yahweh: the “I AM WHO I AM” is to fall into the Arian heresy and make Jesus a demigod, god-like, but not really, fully… God.

Sin inclines us to make Jesus into a demigod because that’s secretly what we want to be ourselves. Not content with being creatures of God, we want the spark of the divine all for ourselves.

That’s Adam and Eve’s original sin! They weren’t happy being subjected to the King’s every whim, letting him run the verbs. They wanted to steer the ship themselves; and…it crashed and burned 🙁

Jesus took all this sin of ours on himself at his baptism, and, on the cross, his death took him where sin will take us—to hell! So that when we go there, we’ll find Jesus, waiting, smiling, and going: “Hey, this is a dreary place. Let’s get the hell out of here!” And, like lost lambs, we’ll fall into his arms as he carries us happily home.

But if we make Jesus only part God, we’re secretly, and probably unknowingly, usurping his divinity for ourselves. We’re refusing to let God run the verbs, nor letting Jesus be the Good Shepherd throwing us on his shoulder and getting us out of hell all by his love and grace, through the faith that trusts that he knows best and lets him take us wherever he pleases.

This is why denying Jesus is fully God (as Arians do! 🙁 leads always to the Pelagian error of insisting that our free will and our good works are what’ll get us out of hell.

You can find this same error in James’ non-canonical epistle where he says: ‘Abraham was justified by works’, not by faith in Jesus alone… 🙁

But such “good works” only sink us deeper into hell, wriggling out of the Good Shepherd’s strong arms and dooming us!

Asking in Jesus’ Name then, is first: recognizing Jesus’ secret identity as Yahweh, the One True God, and second: asking “Thy will, not mine be done” as Jesus does, in Gethsemane. Lewis says: “Everyone in Heaven says to God: “Thy will be done!” While God says to everyone in hell, “Thy will be done!”

Jesus shows his power by letting us play God, judge him, and kill him. In God’s weakness we see Jesus’ great strength (you can’t keep a Good God down! 😉 and, also: the great weakness of our strength.

Only when we see Jesus like this: as the crucified King, whose power is made perfect in weakness, can we grasp the power of his Resurrection, and realize it is all ours as his free gift to us lost, silly sheep who—when we give up the dream of being gods, ourselves, come to be partakers of the divine nature precisely, (paradoxically 😉 in the giving up.

It’s like: “anyone who believes in total depravity can’t be all bad!”

I know. It’s troubling—this weird Xn faith—realizing that the only good work we can do is to quit trying to do good works, ourselves, and just let Jesus! do it all in us for us by faith alone.

That’s the trouble we have in this world. But Jesus says: “Take heart; I have overcome the world”. And so have we. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.