For the past two week and today, we have jumped around St. John’s 16th chapter. We even had a little look into the 15th chapter. In these chapters, Jesus is preparing His disciples for His departure.

Now, it would seem that the departure He’s preparing them for His crucifixion and death. It’s the day of Jesus’ betrayal, after all. He had just washed their feet after supper, knowing that “His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father.” (cf. John 13:1) Up to this time, Jesus had spent about three years with them, catechizing them, giving them their seminary education, so to speak, even though their minds would not be open to His instruction until after His resurrection. On at least three occasions, Jesus had told them that He would be betrayed and delivered to death, and on all three times He was not understood. (cf. Matthew 17:22; 20:18; 26:24)

On the night of today’s text, however, there is something else going on. Jesus’ tenor is different than in His Passion predictions.

“A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me, because I go to the Father.” (John 16:16) “It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.” (John 16:7) “He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” (John 16:14) “Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you. And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” (John 16:22ff)

“I will go away and send the Helper. You will sorrow for a while, but I will see you again. In that day you will ask Me nothing. In the meantime, ask whatever of the Father in My name, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

Yes, Jesus is going to die for their sins and the sins of the world. He is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. But He is also the Son of God, very God of very God, and He will reign forever and ever in a kingdom that has no end, and for your benefit—more than just sending the Helper, the Spirit of Truth—He will ascend to the Father in heaven in order to be your advocate before the Father, One who, in flesh and blood like yours, is able to sympathize with your weakness. (cf. Hebrews 4:15)

He will return to judge the living and the dead, and on that day, the disciples’ sorrow will be turned to joy that no one can take away; yours too, dear hearers. For on that day, all will see Jesus, and those who suffered for His name’s sake, all those who have received the mark of the cross upon forehead and breast marking them as redeemed by Christ the crucified, will be assumed into life everlasting, where they will take a place as the heavenly banquet—the feast of victory of our God. The Son of God and Son of Man is preparing a place for you now, and He will return one day to take you to be with Himself in eternity. On that day, you will know true and everlasting joy!

In the meantime, Jesus bids you to pray. He bids you to ask of the Father in His name, and He will give to you. “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

And in these latter days, these last two millennia, the Church has asked of Her Head in prayer that which He has commanded Her to do—in His name—a fact that we celebrate on this day, Rogate, the Sunday before the three Minor Days of Rogation, the three days before the celebration of His Ascension to the right hand of the throne of God. Every Sunday that has a special name, as today, usually gets that name from the first line of the Introit or Psalm for the day, except for Rogate. Today is slightly different as the name is taken from the Latin word for “to ask” or “to call upon,” due to what Jesus tells His church in today’s Gospel: “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

Today is a day about prayer; as Jesus prepares to be in the sight of His people no longer, He gives the gift of prayer in His name: “Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

Now, in these days following Jesus’ ascension, Christians have been calling upon God and asking in Jesus’ name. A favorite prayer passage of Christians the world over is from St. James: “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” (James 5:16b) Something to be made clear from this passage and what Jesus says in today’s text is that prayer is closely connected to Baptism.

• For one thing, the righteous man whose effective, fervent prayer avails much is made righteous, and he is made righteous only by grace through faith. The righteousness of this man is alien to him—that is, it comes from outside of himself. The converse can also be said to be true, that the prayer of the unrighteous man avails nothing, because it is not prayed from a righteousness that is from outside of himself, because he rejects that alien righteousness.
• For another thing, the prayer in Jesus’ name avails and is effective only because of Christ and Him crucified. The New Man in Christ knows for what to pray, and he asks in Jesus’ name exactly what it is that needs to be prayed for. This prayer is heard, is effective, and avails much, the Father in heaven gives, and you receive!

There is also a lesson in that. What Jesus doesn’t say is slap a good ol’ “in Jesus name” on the end of your request; that isn’t praying in His name. Since prayer is connected to Baptism, it is the New Man in Christ which wars against your Old Adam that is making the request known before God. Praying in Jesus’ name is praying in faith, praying the words that God has given you to pray, asking for those things which God dearly loves to give: forgiveness, and increase in faith, a right understanding of His Word, life, salvation, etc. Praying in Jesus’ name is praying in the true fear of God, which acknowledges that you have no merit of yourself to approach God, but that all that you receive from the hand of God is given to you by grace.

Praying in Jesus’ name is praying in the confidence that you are claimed by God as a son and co-heir with Jesus of eternal life and all the blessings of heaven. It is part of the Baptismal life, for when you pray in Jesus’ name you are doing exactly that which the Baptized does. Rev. Burnell Eckardt put it this way:

...[T]o call upon God’s name is to claim the privileges which Baptism in God’s name has granted. When you pray, therefore, pray in Jesus’ name, that is, with the claim of being His own possession, having been baptized in that name, that excellent name whose full express is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And know that this triune God must hear you, for His name’s sake. (Every Day Will I Bless Thee, p. 223)

It would follow then that, since praying in Jesus’ name is claiming the privileges which are granted you in Baptism, since praying in Jesus’ name is praying with the claim of being God’s own possession, since praying in Jesus’ name is prayer made in faith—it is the prayer of the New Man—then it doesn’t even need to include the phrase “in Jesus’ name,” because the very nature of the faithful, fervent, effective prayer that avails is a prayer in Jesus’ name.

The Father has a claim on you via the blood of the Son, Jesus Christ the crucified. You are marked upon forehead and breast as one redeemed, bought back, by Christ. There is a price on your head: not gold or silver, but Jesus’ holy, precious blood, and His innocent suffering and death. You are owned, not as a mere slave, but as a son:

Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. (John 8:34-36)

The Son has made you free; therefore, you are a son of God. You heard Jesus say in today’s text that the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Him, and that love you have for Jesus is given you only by grace through faith because you are a son of God. So, since are a son of God, then your approach to God is as to your father, for God is your Father in heaven. Can there be any greater prayer in Jesus’ name than the one He has taught you, which at the outset you address God as, “Our Father, who art in heaven...?”

Therefore, since praying in Jesus name is praying in God-given faith, then it is not praying for every desire of your heart. So long as you live on this side of eternity, you will have desires that you seek to have fulfilled—a better job, more pay, a new car, a new house, health, a husband or wife, children, a comfortable retirement—and for these you have prayed, do pray, and will pray. And it is meet, right, and salutary that you should, even as you would have asked your fathers for bread, a fish, or an egg. (cf. Luke 11:11-12) You do have the Word from God to do that:

• “LORD, You have heard the desire of the humble; You will prepare their heart; You will cause Your ear to hear...” (Psalm 10:17)
• “Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.” (Psalm 37:4-5)

Be prepared to receive a “No,” or “Not yet” as the reply, though; experience should tell you this.

Praying in Jesus’ name is praying in faith and trust in Jesus and His death for your forgiveness, life, and salvation. Faith and trust ask of the Father what He has already promised you and given to you and which you, by faith, have already received. It is forgiveness, life, and salvation, though, that the heart saved by God’s grace chiefly desires and what it continually asks for. From Rev. Eckardt again: “Ask, [Jesus] says, and you will receive, because faith not only knows what to ask, but how, since faith itself comes from the triune God and his name which is given in Baptism.”

Jesus told the disciples—He tells you—that He goes to the Father, sends the Helper, and that you should ask of the Father in His name in order to give you comfort. You live in a world that hates God. Even you hate God in your Old Adam. The world, the devil, and your own sinful nature are constantly at war with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But the Words you hear from Jesus today give you peace. “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” You have peace with the Creator of the world, because the Redeemer has called you out from it and made you His own, and He has given you the Sanctifier in Holy Baptism to mark you as His own. Jesus will come again—He who has overcome the world—and on that great and dreadful last day, you will be gathered with Him in eternity in the new creation.

In the meantime, the temptation always exists to turn from God because the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh are always at work in you to convince you that God is distant, uncaring, vengeful, and angry. In those times, you will want to neglect prayer, Word, and the Sacraments and scatter from God. As Jesus said, “Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone.” The devil, the world, and your own sinful nature play a hard game, and you so easily forget Jesus and His promises. You scatter in a vain attempt to find a little peace and solace only to wonder, “Did God abandon me? Did God forsake me?”

Dear hearers, God has not forsaken you. He sent His Son to you and for you. His Son has taken your place under the wrath of the Father, receiving it all. And, in fact, as the Son hung dying on the cross, the Father forsook Him! “Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?” There is now no wrath for you, there is no forsaking you, there is now, no condemnation for you (cf. Romans 8:1), because the Son took it all in your place.

In your stead, Christ shed His blood under the full wrath of God, and He died. Christ has died, but Christ is risen. Now, He is ascended and seated at the right of the throne and power of God. Jesus is the Man who stands in your stead before the throne of God. He bids you to pray in His name, and comforts you with His presence in Word and Sacraments. He is here, and you are not alone. On the contrary, the Helper, the Spirit of Truth, is here to give you Jesus so that you may have peace and life, the forgiveness of all of your sins.