Readings: Acts 18:23-28; Ps.47; John 16:23-28
Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Emenike Onyi
PRESENTING OUR REQUEST TO GOD THROUGH CHRIST OUR LORD
People often ask why most of our liturgical prayers conclude with the phrase ‘through Christ our Lord.’ Is this necessary since God can hear us directly? Anyway, the answer to this question is found in our Gospel passage today, when Jesus said to his disciples: ‘I tell you most solemnly, anything you ask for from the Father he will grant in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and so your joy will be complete... because the Father himself loves you for loving me.’
Here Jesus makes a solemn promise to his disciples that whatever they ask the Father in his name will be given to them. This is because, in Jesus, the disciples will experience direct contact with the Father. His name becomes the link that will usher them into the divine relationship between the Son and the Father. For it is through this relationship that the disciples will come to experience the divine privilege that will give access to their request from God.
Therefore, the Greek word ‘dia’, which can be translated as both ‘by’ and ‘through’, can be linked to the words of Jesus when he said in John 14:6 ‘, I am the way. No one can come to the Father except “through“ me’. Thus, Jesus is the way through which we can come to God. For through Jesus, we have obtained access to the grace of being God’s children.
This does not mean that God is inaccessible. Rather, as we know God is a spirit whose nature is beyond our apprehension and different from our nature, which is material and sinful. So to make Himself known to us, He sent His son to take our flesh upon him and to become human like us, to free us from the power of sin and death, so that we can be closer to Him through Christ, His Son.
Hence, asking God for something through Christ ushers us into the divine grace that gives us access to the divine relationship with God the Father, and this has become the normal way for the Church to pray to the Father, as we do in all our liturgical prayers. This is what I see playing out in our first reading today when Apollos arrived in Chaia, and by God’s grace, he was able in an energetic way to refute the Jews in public and demonstrate from the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.
Dear friends, God makes Himself known to us through Jesus, and we come to Him through Jesus. Thus, Christ Jesus has become the divine grace through which we obtain the divine access into the divine life of the Trinity. And this is the source of our joy as Christians. For this, give us the divine access to include Jesus in our daily decision-making
And try to see things the way he does, and when this happens, we transcend ourselves into the divine relationship that will make us open to the will of God and so obtain from him whatever we need. This is why we conclude most of our prayers in the name of Christ Jesus.
LET US PRAY: Lord God, as we learn to present our needs to you through your Son Jesus, we pray that we may obtain through him the divine access to your will and so grant all our petitions according to your Holy will through Christ our Lord. Amen. Have a grace-filled weekend.,
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