Passage:
James 5:13-20
In this
passage, James says some things about prayer that, I’m sure, will spark
contentious debate until the end of time.
At first glance James seems to issue a simple exhortation to pray. “Pray when you are in trouble; pray when you’re
happy; pray when you’re sick…” As Paul
says in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray continually…” It’s what James says next, however, that
inevitably raises difficult questions:
…the prayer of faith will save the one who is
sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he
will be forgiven. Therefore, confess
your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.
James
mentions that prayer will save the one who is sick. Is James talking about physical healing, or
ultimate soul-salvation? Christians who
conclude the former have applied “healing prayer” in the assumption that,
issued with the proper attitude and fervency, prayer will sustain the life of
the afflicted. When the affliction is
not lifted, the conclusion has to be that the faith or persistence of those
praying was inadequate. This in turn
leads many of us to conclude that James is talking primarily about salvation
and the promise of resurrection through Jesus Christ. This is certainly a safer conclusion that
explains why those for whom we pray still get sick and die. But then James goes on to say,
The prayer of a righteous person has great
power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours,
and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years
and six months it did not rain on the earth.
Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its
fruit.
The
apostle unapologetically argues that the prayers of the faithful have a
real-life impact on imminent realities.
To understand this we have to appreciate what James and his fellow
apostles have seen and heard. James, the
brother of Jesus who became a follower of Jesus, witnessed water being changed
into wine; crowds being fed; sick people being healed; the dead being
raised. This in response to the words of
the Savior and the prayers of his
disciples. Were these miracles invasions
of earth by heaven limited to the time in which Jesus walked the earth?
In Early Christian Letters for Everyone, NT
Wright argues otherwise. Wright points
out that Jesus’ life and ministry marks the advent of an ongoing invasion of
earth by heaven – an era in which “the Kingdom of Heaven is not far off.” When the reality of Heaven breaks into our
current reality, miraculous and unexpected things happen. Because we live in a world corrupted by sin,
we’ve been conditioned to think of weakness, sickness and death as normal. In fact, these are deviations from the way it’s
meant to be. The sign of the Kingdom of
Heaven is restoration – the restoration of bodies, spirits, and relationships. Wright goes on to argue that when we live in
Christ, we live at the intersection of Heaven and Earth. This is an intersection at which all things
are possible. The invitation to prayer
is an invitation to appeal to a God who is able to do immeasurably more than we
could ask or imagine. A God whose
priority for us and our world is restoration, new life, and reconciliation. When we pray for these, we do two things:
First, we trust God’s timing and methods in answering our prayers; second, we
trust his ability to fulfill his promises.
Our prayer, in turn, serves the purpose not of persuading God to do what
we want, but of realigning our wills so that we begin to want – for ourselves
and our world – what God wants.
