Article Contributed on: 11/2/2006 11:53:08 PM
There's an old joke that says NASCAR fans think the last four words of the National Anthem are, "Gentlemen, start your engines."
Old, perhaps less than funny but somewhat accurate, no? Well, in much the same way today's Christians seem to have adopted a phrase into their ritual and have thereby diluted the meaning of each. The phrase? "In Jesus' name...".
As someone who is responsible for recording the sermons of Evangelicals, I am actually grateful for this phenomenon at a certain level because when I hear the preacher say, "in Jesus' name," I know the very next word will be "Amen" and I need to be ready to stop the recording.
But as a believer who's active in the church, I'm bothered by what I see as the degradation of the phrase - and therefore the increasing meaninglessness of this tenet of our Faith. But to completely understand why, some understanding of history is in order.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and then set Himself above them. Which is to say that he was already physically above them when He built the whole structure, but He also laid out the ways and means of life in such a way that he would be the Ultimate Authority over His creation.
Soon, he chose a righteous man, Abram, (later Abraham), through which he would show Himself to the world. But in order to make themselves right with God, the line of Abraham (through Jacob) would have to follow his ways. When they strayed, they were instructed to offer sacrifices to the Lord as penance for their sins.
But as human nature would have it, they soon started going on the cheap as far as their sacrifices were concerned and none were deemed worthy as a gift to the Lord and God punished them for their turning from his ways.
The people repented - for a time - and gained God's favor again. This pattern was repeated time and time again, and even continued into the modern era.
Something had to be done in order to break the cycle, and it was obvious that there was nothing we could do about it. God (obviously) knew this, and He took the first step...
God knew that only a completely perfect sacrifice would set right his scales of justice. He also knew that we were utterly incapable of producing a perfect sacrifice - and even if we should somehow stumble upon it, we would instead decide to keep it for ourselves.
So he provided us with the ideal offering to him: a perfect piece of himself - in human form - having been born into this world of woman, having lived a perfect life as an example to us and willingly going to the cross as a sacrifice for us.
But before he (Yeshua) was crucified, he spent three years in ministry to his
father's name. In that time, he taught his followers to "ask of the father" in "the name of the son" and whatever they asked would be given.
This is the root cause of our current misunderstanding...
Of course Christ made promises in his name to those who would ask of the father in his name! That was the very nature of his existence here on earth!
Christ was the very design of a "lifeboat:" He was sent here as a way to breach the void between the creator and those who would seek him. Christ is a bridge between us and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - His chosen.
But when we forget that, we end up praying to Jesus (Yeshua) in the name of Jesus (Yeshua) for the sake of Jesus (Yeshua). And to be honest, that makes no sense at all...
Instead, Christians should remember that "praying in the name" should come first. We need to be reminded that calling upon the name of our savior should come above all other concerns.
After all, that's what we're called to. So instead, I offer the following prayer/sequence:
"Father: I know that it is only through the death. suffering and sacrifice of your son that I am able to approach you. So in recognition of his life, ministry, death and resurrection for my sake, I come to you to ask..."