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ОглавлениеIntercession and Scripture Old Testament
If we are to pray for others, we need to know the traditions, teachings, and practices of intercession found in scripture. These are God’s design for authentic intercession. They will guard us from errors of judgment and motivate us to continue in prayer, especially when we are tempted to give up. Chapters 1 and 2 focus on particular models of intercession from the scriptures, first from the Old Testament, and then from the New Testament. Biblical teaching undergirds this whole study, but these two chapters provide a foundation.
It will be helpful to have an open Bible nearby as we learn more about intercession. First we turn to the Torah, the Prophets, and the Wisdom Literature. We will focus on Moses, Elijah, and the psalmist.
Moses as Intercessor
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD.” They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.
The LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ ” The LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”
But Moses implored the LORD his God, and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.—Exodus 32:1-14
A biblical understanding of intercession surely begins with the example of someone like Moses, whom, according to the Torah, “the LORD knew face to face” (Deut. 34:10). Moses is set apart from the beginning of his life—saved in a basket (literally an ark) that floats down the river; called aside by the Voice from within the burning bush, commissioned as the one who will speak to Pharaoh the oppressor. Throughout the book of Exodus, God speaks to Moses, guiding him, correcting him, encouraging him, at times with words—“I will be with you”—at other times with visible signs—plagues, cloud, fire, and manna.
In Exodus, Mount Sinai is a holy place (Exod. 19:23). There God gives Moses the commandments (Exod. 20). Later, at the end of Moses’ life, God is with him on another mountain, Mount Nebo. God points to the Promised Land, allowing Moses to see it, but letting him know that Moses will not be allowed to enter it. In the Gospels, Jesus is transfigured on a “high mountain” (Matt. 17:1-2). Moses appears there, along with Elijah.
Invitation to reflect: Mountain peaks are holy places throughout the scriptures. Recall what you would consider a mountaintop experience in your own life or a geographical mountain setting that is important to you. How has that experience or place affected your faith journey?
Moses has been on the mountain for forty days and forty nights. Moses is the leader of the people, but in his absence there is a void in leadership. So the people make demands on the logical person who is present: Aaron. They demand: “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us”; the idea of “going before” is also present in Exodus 13 (a cloud by day, a fire by night). Their true leader, Moses, is almost forgotten (“as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him”). In contemporary parlance, they might have asked, “Moses, what have you done for us lately?”
We have short memories. When God is absent, we look for substitutes. My neighbor Steve Shoemaker has written: “When times get hard and God seems nowhere to be found, the consolations of what we can see and touch, taste and smell are awfully appealing: the feel of gold, the taste of skin, the smell of the soil, the sea. Golden calves often beat out the impalpable God.”1
And so the Hebrew people demand other gods. Aaron, their leader, is either overwhelmed with doubts or intimidated, or perhaps some combination of both. In the end, he gives in to the demands of the people.
Invitation to reflect: Think about your own sphere of influence. Can you relate to Aaron’s predicament? Recall an instance when you’ve been tempted to give people not what they need but what they desire.
The people take the gold rings from their ears and bring them to Aaron. Aaron melts the gold and casts an image of a calf. They said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” (Exod. 32:4), in clear violation of the second commandment. Human beings are worshiping creatures; when we refuse to worship the One God, we bow down to worship many gods (Rom. 1).
Seeing all this, the Lord sends Moses back down the mountain at once to the scene of the idolatry and unfaithfulness. The people are indicted. Israel is no longer “my people” but “your people” (Exod. 32:7, emphasis added). God mediates and intervenes through people like Moses—and perhaps you and me. Next comes a curious development in the story. The Lord says, “Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation” (32:10). Is God brooding? Does God need solitude? The rabbis who reflected on this story thought so. But a period of solitude and reflection gives Moses the time to consider his own action as well. What should Moses do?
He intercedes. “Moses implored the LORD his God, and said, ‘O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?” (32:11). Moses speaks on behalf of his people. Here Moses fulfills the role of priest. Moses speaks boldly to God, and there is give and take in this relationship. Moses reminds God that these are “your people”! He reminds God of the divine reputation: “Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath.”
Moses says to the Lord, don’t you remember who you are? You are “the Lord [who is] . . . merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (Exod. 34:6, emphasis added). Moses pleads with God: “Change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people” (Exod. 32:12).
The persistence of Moses leads to theological questions: Can or should we expect God’s mind to be changed? Moses does not let up! “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, “I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever’ ” (Exod. 32:13).
Moses appeals to the nature of God, which is to keep faith with promise and covenant. Moses knew the history and character of God. He knew the frailty and error of his own people. And yet Moses refused to allow the relationship to end. And finally, “the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people” (Exod. 32:14).
Invitation to reflect: We sometimes imagine that God is unchanging, and yet there are clearly alterations or shifts in God’s discernment and thinking here. What does this say to you about the nature of God? Do you find the thought of a God whose mind can be changed to be encouraging or uncomfortable?
The Intercessions of the Prophets
Then Elijah said to the people, “I, even I only, am left a prophet of the LORD; but Baal’s prophets number four hundred and fifty.”—1 Kings 18:22
[The angel of the Lord] said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” Then the LORD said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place. Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill; and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill. Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” —1 Kings 19:11-18
Do you ever sense that God is speaking through you? Are you puzzled, challenged, or even angered by what is going on in the world? Do you wonder why there seems to be such a huge gap between the world that God intended and the way things are? Do you ever find yourself asking God to intervene in events, to change the course of history, to bring about peace and justice and righteousness?
In the Bible, prophets are those who speak God’s word into a present situation. They are in tune with the events of their time—warfare, poverty, worship of false gods, complacency—and they also are open to the will of God. “Everyone more or less believes in God,” Eugene Peterson has written. “But most of us do our best to keep God on the margins of our lives, or, failing that, we refashion God to suit our convenience. Prophets insist that God is the sovereign center, not off in the wings awaiting our beck and call. And prophets insist that we deal with God as God reveals himself, not as we imagine him to be.”2
The perception that prophets predict the future is only partially true. Prophets are given a vision that has implications for the present and the future. At times the work of the prophet can be lonely, as Elijah confessed to the Lord.
Invitation to reflect: When have you felt that you were praying for an outcome that seemed unlikely, and that you were in the minority in making your appeal to God?
We can think of intercession as priestly work—speaking to God on behalf of the people, speaking to people on behalf of God—but intercession is also a prophetic ministry. In the Hebrew Bible, the books written by the prophets are the second major portion of scripture, following the Law. Prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel called the people to follow God’s law, to remember God’s salvation, to accept God’s judgment, and to receive God’s mercy. They did this by making the word of God plain (“thus says the LORD”) and by pointing others to signs. Jeremiah spoke of a potter working with clay, which communicated that God is free to shape and mold us for a variety of purposes. Ezekiel envisioned a valley of dry bones, reminding us that God can bring life out of death.
Elijah is often regarded as representative of all of the prophets. His story in 1 Kings narrates the struggle between the worship of God in contrast to the worship of Baal. Overtaken by fatigue and fear, Elijah complains to God. God listens, and God reminds Elijah that he is not alone. Elijah is sent forth: “Go, return on your way to the wilderness” (1 Kings 19:15). God overlooks Elijah’s tendency to cast blame on Israel. Like so many of us, Elijah overestimates the obstacles before him. God keeps Elijah’s focus on the future and upon the vision that will be fulfilled.
The prophetic words are always vivid and stark. They get our attention! The prophets spoke chiefly against two evils: (1) the tendency to worship other gods, and (2) neglect of the poor. They challenge the complacent and self-sufficient, warning them of coming disaster. They comfort the people in exile, driven from their homes, assuring them of protection. In their own time, and today, the prophets envision a reality so different from what we know that we are forced to look and listen. In a vision of the “Peaceable Kingdom,” Isaiah spoke of the wolf living with the lamb. In a world marked by war, violence, and conflict, the prophets present God’s vision for the world and call us to live toward that vision.
Martin Luther King Jr., a prophetic witness in the last century, reminded people of the difference between their public profession (“that all are created equal”) and their practice in regard to people of other races. He called Christians to listen to the prophets. He often quoted a favorite scripture from the prophet Amos: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (5:24). In this way King’s voice followed in the tradition of the prophets of ancient Israel.
Invitation to reflect: Meditate on the words of Amos 5:24. Say them slowly. Imagine that you are speaking these words to God, as appeal, as demand. Now imagine that the Lord is speaking these words to you, also as appeal and as command.
It has been said that the role of the prophet is to afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted. To those who are comfortable and complacent the prophets bring a warning. To those who are suffering and burdened the prophets bring a word of hope. Who are the prophetic voices in your own community?
Invitation to reflect: What would your community look like if God’s vision for it were to become a reality? Who are the comfortable in your community? Who are the afflicted in your community? How can you remember both these groups in your prayers?
Intercession and the Psalms:
Joy of Human Desiring
O God, you are my God, I seek you,
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands and call on your name.
My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast,
and my mouth praises you with joyful lips
when I think of you on my bed,
and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
for you have been my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.
My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.
But those who seek to destroy my life
shall go down into the depths of the earth;
they shall be given over to the power of the sword,
they shall be prey for jackals.
But the king shall rejoice in God;
all who swear by him shall exult,
for the mouths of liars will be stopped.—Psalm 63
To thirst is to long for something essential. The psalmist knew about this longing. Psalm 63 is a psalm of David, the ascription tells us, when David was in the wilderness of Judah.
Do we know what it is like to thirst for something essential in the wilderness? Amid loneliness and isolation many search for community in a variety of ways. I once served a church that included a very fine bass voice among the men, and each summer he would sing the national anthem at the local Minor League Baseball game. It was always wonderful, and many of us came along to enjoy the game and offer moral support. This outing usually occurred on what was known as Thirsty Thursday. If you use your imagination, you can figure out what Thirsty Thursday was all about! Lots of people—very thirsty people—sharing fellowship; at the same time, a baseball game was taking place!
But thirst has a more basic meaning. I opened the newspaper a few months ago to read about a local woman’s trip to Bolivia. I have traveled to this beautiful country. She had been, more specifically, to Cochabamba. I’ve been there as well. Bolivia is landlocked—devoid of harbors and beaches, and water supplies are critically low. The people of Cochabamba were rioting because of lack of water. Very thirsty people.
It is not accidental that the scriptures speak of water in describing our human longings and desirings. My soul thirsts for you, for God, the psalmist writes, in the midst of the wilderness.
Invitation to reflect: Do we know what it means to thirst for God? to want God as much as a man or woman in the midst of the Judean wilderness wants something essential, a drink of water? to want God as much as the people of Cochabamba, who were rioting for water?
To thirst for God is to desire God; it is to know that God is essential. Sometimes we have to be in the wilderness before we recognize our thirst, our desires. The Bible speaks of wilderness as a place of testing, trial, emptiness, absence. The rabbis called the wilderness the school of the soul. In the wilderness we discover the essential.
If you have experienced a serious illness or medical uncertainty, you know about wilderness. If you have experienced any form of prejudice, you know about wilderness. If you have lived in depression, you know about wilderness. If you have felt like you were in the wrong place or have walked in the darkness of grief, you know about wilderness. To be in the wilderness is like being in a dry and weary land without water. In the Christian season of Lent, we see the geography of wilderness in our spiritual lives. Lent is forty days of wilderness, a time of discovering that the temptations of Jesus are our own testings. Lent reminds us that life is difficult, and, further, that Christian life is difficult. There are mountaintops, but there are also valleys. There are rainbows, but there are also storms. There are sunrises, but there are also sunsets. There are Easter mornings, but there are also Good Fridays. There are beautiful spring days, but there is also the dead of winter. Most of us have made this journey. We’ve been there!
Invitation to reflect: Recall a wilderness experience that called forth your deep prayers, for self and others. When did the experience occur, and what was it like?
Psalm 63 helps us name all of this. John Chrysostom, an early church father, insisted that “no day should pass without singing this Psalm.” We plan our lives, we make preparations, we try to control outcomes and events, but some day, some time, somewhere, when we least expect it, we will find ourselves in the wilderness. It helps to know that. A false teaching about Christianity denies this truth, claiming that if we love God, if we follow Jesus, if we serve our neighbor, life will blossom in abundance and overflowing. We discover insights about two realities of life in this psalm: spiritual dryness and spiritual darkness.
Invitation to reflect: Recall a time when you prayed in the midst of darkness and dryness. What was the experience like? What did you learn about yourself? And what sustained you?
One of the Screwtape Letters of C. S. Lewis talks about spiritual dryness. Screwtape, writing to his nephew, who is a devil in training, describes the work of God that goes on in our lives: “In His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else.”3 This remarkable comment follows not much later in the letter: “The prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best.”4
Spiritual dryness implies thirsting for something, desiring something, maybe God. We also may know spiritual darkness. The psalms refer repeatedly to this condition:
I . . . meditate on you in the watches of the night. (Ps. 63:6)
Surely the darkness shall cover me. (Ps. 139:11)
In the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, until the destroying storms pass by. (Ps. 57:1)
Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil. (Ps. 23:4)
For most Christians, wilderness is a part of the faith journey. There are times to bask in the sunshine and times to hide in the shadows. Psalm 63 describes the shadow times in life. Many people turn to the Bible, and maybe even to the church, for safety, for security, for refuge. The psalmist writes, “You have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy” (v. 7).
What does it mean to be in the shadow of God’s wings? In the darkness, we cannot always see, and yet we trust. In the darkness, we sense the dangers of life, and yet we trust. In the darkness, we sense that death is approaching, and yet we trust: in the words of an old hymn, “Abide with me; fast falls the eventide.”
In the Christian tradition this experience has been known as the “dark night of the soul.” In the dark night there are no visible signs of God’s presence; it may be the pruning we read about in John 15; in the Passion, it is the stripping down of Christ, the emptying that we read about in Philippians 2; in the seasons of the year, it is the cold and snow of winter. The dark night purges all our assumptions, our support systems, all forms of light. We are in the darkness.
And yet, paradoxically, we find ourselves in the shadow of God’s wings. There we sing, “Abide with me.” In the dark night of the soul, God is preparing us for the light.
We encounter times of spiritual dryness and spiritual darkness throughout our journeys. How do we live, how do we survive, how do we make our way through wilderness times? How do we intercede? One answer is that we are given the desire for something, a desire for something that will quench our thirst, a desire for something that will light our way.
And so we return to the questions What do we desire the most? What is essential? Of course, our desires can get all out of focus. We can desire the wrong things; these become compulsions, addictions. Marketers can teach us to desire what that may or may not be helpful to us.
Two simple truths about desires are notable for a Christian. First, God desires us. The One who created us also loves us. Augustine said, in a prayer to God, “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”5 David Ford, a theologian at Cambridge, observes, “If we get the desire for God right, everything else follows.” 6 We love, because God first loved us. We desire God, because God has first desired us. We intercede, knowing that God has interceded on our behalf. We yearn for God and find it amazing that God has first yearned for us. Amazing. We need reminders of this truth, or it will get crowded out amid all the other messages we receive. Hymns remind us: it is grace, amazing grace. Scripture remind us: it is God’s gift, this life, the life to come, all a gift. Worship reminds us: baptism, a new identity; Communion, a renewed promise to feed us and sustain us, like manna in the wilderness. The wisdom and love of friends remind us, in Sunday school classes and in circles and in small groups, and wherever two or three are gathered in his name: we are the beloved children, and God desires us.
This truth of God’s love leads to another. The abundant life consists of desiring what God desires. How do we make our way through times of dryness and darkness? We continue to say the prayers, even when we don’t feel anything. We continue loving, even when we don’t feel worthy of love. We continue to worship, even when it does not please us to worship. We take one step at a time, even when we do not see very far into the future. We do the next thing; we eat the next meal, remembering that the promise is for daily bread and that God sustained the people with manna in the wilderness each day, enough for that day.
Our desires as Christians are always translated into small works, practices, gestures. And so we are led to the water, and we take a drink. We hide in the shadows of God’s presence and watch for the morning.
The good news is that when we are ready for something that is essential, God will give it to us. When we were children, we learned to distinguish between what we wanted and what we needed. What we need is water, living water, like the woman, a Samaritan, who discovered Jesus at the well and said, “Give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty” (John 4:15).
Maybe you are reading this and reflecting on it, and you are really thirsty, spiritually dehydrated, emotionally empty. Maybe you are listening, you are in the shadows, you are in the dark night, spiritually lost, emotionally bewildered.
Invitation to reflect: Listen to the good news of the scripture.
If you are in the wilderness of fatigue, hear the good news—“The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want . . . he leads me beside still waters.” (Ps. 23:1-2)
. . . in the wilderness of depression—“With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” (Isa. 12:3)
. . . in the wilderness of being alone in your convictions—”You are like a tree planted by streams of water.” (Ps. 1:3)
. . . in the wilderness of the deepest valley—“Though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me.” (Ps. 23:4)
. . . in the wilderness of grief—“The lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Rev. 7:17)
If you are in the wilderness, God’s gift to you is Psalm 63. It is a prayer offered in a state of dryness, in a moment of darkness. It is a prayer that pleases God, the God who enters into your wildernesses, the God who desires you, the God who seeks you and finds you, the God who prays for you.
Invitation to reflect: How might Psalm 63 be a prayer offered for those who do not have the faith or strength to pray it for themselves? Think of someone who is in a place of spiritual dryness or darkness. Consider praying this psalm on behalf of that individual.
These passages of scripture from the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms remind us of the importance of prayer in the Old Testament. Now we turn to the New Testament, as we deepen our foundation for a life of intercession.
