It should come as no surprise to people that Jesus prayed.  Even people who do not know a whole lot about Jesus know that He prayed.   But what they might not realize is just how often He did pray.  The next time you are reading in the gospels, pay attention to how often Jesus prayed. 

Vague

Quite often it is a seemingly superfluous thing, something as simple as is mentioned in passages like Luke 5:16, where it just states that Jesus withdrew(went off by Himself) to pray.  Quite often, we do not know what He prayed, His subject matter or anything else about the prayer.  About the only thing we do know is that He prayed.

Detailed

Some passages give a significant amount of detail.  Many people can recite what is mistakenly called the “Lord’s prayer.”  He didn’t actually pray then; He gave a basic framework for some things you could mention in your prayers.  But there are other times when Jesus actually did pray and we see what He said.  One of the best, and longest, examples of Jesus praying is in John 17.  The entire chapter is one prayer.  Jesus prays for Himself, the apostles and future believers(like people today).

Why Pray?

It might sound like an odd question.  Of course, Jesus would pray, right?  But why?  I mean, He was God(John 1:1).  Why does God need to pray to God?  Personally, I think it is unfortunate the way the Bible is translated at times.  I am not knocking just a few translations; I think this is a pretty universal complaint that I have here.  When you are reading in your Bible and you read “God,” who do you think?  And don’t say, “God.” 

In the New Testament, we find out that there are three individuals that we collectively refer to as God.  There is Jesus.  There is the Holy Spirit, Who Jesus was going to send after His death, burial and resurrection.  And there is the Father.  I suspect that when most people read “God” in the Old Testament, they think of the Father.  God is often thought of as being mean and judgmental(like a father), and then when we get to the New Testament and read about Jesus, He is all about peace and love.  For many people, this seems like a stark contrast between the “God” of the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament.  However, this is an over-simplification which leads to a lot of errors.  For example, when God created everything in the beginning(Gen. 1), Father, Son and Holy Spirit were all involved.  In Gen. 1:26, it states “let Us” make man in Our(plural) image.  In Gen. 1:2, we are told that the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.  In John 1:1-3, we are told that Jesus was with God(likely a reference to the Father, if not a reference to the entirety of God(Father, Son and Spirit)) in the beginning and nothing was created without Him(Jesus).    Clearly all three are involved in creation.  But how many other times in the Old Testament does it say “God,” and we just think Father?

Why does the above point matter?  Here’s why.  Throughout the events of the Old Testament, Father, Son and Spirit are together(in heaven) working out the plan of salvation, which will ultimately be finalized with Jesus death, burial and resurrection.  However, the last part of the plan of salvation(where Jesus lived on earth and died for our sins) marks a stark shift in how thing are.  Do you see the difference?  Do you see the monumental change?  Jesus is no longer with the Father.  They are separated, at least in a sense.

During Jesus’ physical life on earth, He and the Father were still one(John 17:21).  But there was also a sense in which they were separated from each other.  This is something that had never happened before.  [Note:  I am using “time” terminology here, and God exists outside of time.   So when I mentioned earlier that Father and Son were together during the events of the Old Testament, that is not entirely correct because they exist outside time.  So the time that the events of the New Testament were taking place, God(Father and Son) was not bound by that physical law(time itself).]  So when Father and Son are separated, it would only make sense that Jesus would reach out to His Father.  I’m not suggesting necessarily that Jesus missed His Father, but there likely was a very real sense in which Jesus missed that “comfort,” for lack of a better term, that He and the Father would feel toward each other.

Another Reason - Example

In so many ways, Jesus should be our example.  And Jesus knows that it is important for us to pray to God(i.e. Father), so it would only make sense that He would spend a lot of time in prayer to show us, His disciples, that we should likewise pray often, and in a variety of circumstances.  He gave us yet another excellent example to follow.

Another Reason – Strength

Although many times Jesus prayed, we do not know why.  However, there were several occasions when Jesus seemed to be praying for strength to do what He needed to do.  The most obvious was His prayer(actually, He prayed three times) in the Garden of Gethsemane, just before His betrayal, trial and execution.  He was God, but this was still going to be something difficult to endure.  He experienced pain and everything else that we experience in our own lives.  Knowing what He was going to endure, and that He could not fail, or our only hope of salvation would disappear had to be a tremendous amount of pressure.  He HAD to succeed.  Failure was unfathomable.  Knowing this, He turned to His Father for strength.  And in the process provided yet another excellent example for us.

Conclusion

Jesus is God, and yet He still prayed to His Father.  Can there be any doubt as to how important prayer should be for us?  I hope not.  Let’s do it.  A lot.