SURRENDER • Healing

Luther says even the faintest broken sigh in the Third Petition is, in God’s hearing, an exceedingly strong cry that fills heaven and earth and drowns out the voices of all our enemies. Romans 8:26 grounds this in the Spirit’s own intercession. Psalm 130 waits in the depths with only the word as the ground of hope. How does this change the way a person in spiritual desolation understands the value of her attempt to pray when the prayer feels like nothing? Our Saviour Lutheran Church • After Matins • Book of Concord After Matins • Large Catechism, Lord’s Prayer, Third Petition: Thy Will Be Done A Declaration of Spiritual War Luther’s explanation of the Third Petition opens with a claim that surprises those who have heard the petition as a quiet resignation to whatever God allows. He teaches that the devil, the world, and our own flesh are fiercely allied against God’s name and kingdom, and that they chafe, rage, and employ all their malicious devices to suppress the Gospel. Therefore, to pray Thy will be done is to ask God actively to shatter the plots of these enemies and to grant us the strength to bear their furious counterattacks without yielding. The petition is not surrender to circumstances but the declaration of a war in which God’s will defeats every hostile power aligned against it. Luther does not soften the cost of living this petition. Where the Word of God is preached and believed and produces fruit, there the holy cross cannot be wanting. A Christian must be prepared to risk possessions, honor, house, and life itself. The prayer is not a request for an easier road; it is the request for the strength to walk a difficult one without falling away from sluggishness or fear. Romans 8’s present sufferings are incomparable to the coming glory, but they are genuinely present, genuinely costly, and genuinely requiring the active surrender the Third Petition makes. Psalm 130’s waiting in the depths is not optional or temporary; it is the condition under which the prayer is prayed and must keep being prayed. Discuss: Luther says the Third Petition is a declaration of spiritual war against the three enemies, not a resigned acceptance of whatever happens. Praying it guarantees the holy cross, the hostility of the world, and the requirement to hold firm under pressure. How does understanding the petition as an active request rather than a passive concession change the way a congregation member prays it during a genuinely difficult season? The Broken Good Will: Gethsemane Luther’s most pastorally penetrating application of the Third Petition is his observation about what must be surrendered. The obvious answer is sinful desires: anger, greed, pride, revenge. But Luther insists that the petition requires the surrender of our good plans as well. He points directly to Christ in Gethsemane: not my will, but thine, be done. Christ’s prayer was not the surrender of a sinful desire but the surrender of a genuinely human preference for the avoidance of suffering, a preference that was not wrong in itself. The point Luther draws is that even our good and noble intentions are immeasurably less than God’s will, which is immeasurably wiser and more gracious than anything our best human planning can devise. God frequently breaks the good will of His saints, Luther observes, to protect them from a false and treacherous pride: the confidence that because their plans were pious and their intentions were pure, those plans must be what God intends. The breaking of the good will teaches the specific form of dependence Psalm 130 embodies: waiting for the Lord, not for the arrival of one’s own carefully constructed solution. Romans 8:28’s all things work together for good is the theological form of the same surrender: the good being worked is not the good we specified but the good that God’s immeasurably superior wisdom designs. The Third Petition is the daily practice of releasing both the sinful and the righteous plans into God’s hands. Discuss: Luther says God breaks not only sinful desires but good and noble plans, to protect His people from a proud confidence in their own piety. Christ’s Gethsemane prayer is the model: the surrender of a genuine human preference, not a sinful one. Why is the surrender of a plan we believe is genuinely good and pious often harder than the surrender of something we know is wrong, and what does the Third Petition require to be done with that difficulty? The Inexpressible Groanings Luther’s most pastorally comforting application of the Third Petition is his treatment of what happens when a person cannot pray it. Romans 8:26 says we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with groanings too deep for words. Luther’s exposition of the Third Petition draws on this directly: when we are brought to the Gethsemane hour and are reduced to a weak, hidden sigh, choked by the roaring terrors of sin, death, and the devil, we feel that our prayer is nothing. But Luther says that in God’s hearing, even this tiny, broken groaning is an exceedingly strong cry that fills heaven and earth. The reason is not that the broken sigh is inherently powerful but that the Spirit inhabits it. Romans 8:26 does not say the Spirit assists our prayer; it says the Spirit intercedes with His own groaning on our behalf. The person who cannot articulate the Third Petition, who can only exhale in the direction of God from the depths of Psalm 130, is not praying a less adequate version of Thy will be done; she is praying it in the form in which the Spirit prays it through her. Luther’s assurance is specific: this groaning completely drowns out the terrifying voices of all our enemies in the ears of God. Psalm 130’s I wait for the Lord is not a confident declaration; it is the last posture of someone who has nothing else. That is enough. Discuss: Luther says the Spirit takes even the faintest broken sigh and translates it into a perfect prayer that fills heaven and drowns out the voices of every enemy. Romans 8:26 grounds this in the Spirit’s own intercession rather than in the quality of the human prayer. How does a pastor preach the Third Petition to a congregation member who is in the condition Psalm 130 describes, in the depths, unable to find words, and who fears that her inability to pray properly means God is not hearing? The Payoff Psalm 130 waits for the Lord from morning to morning, in His word, in the depths, without the morning yet visible. Romans 8 groans inwardly with the whole creation, waiting for the redemption, not knowing how to pray, trusting that the Spirit intercedes and that the predestined sequence holds. The Large Catechism’s Third Petition is the prayer that inhabits this condition: the active surrender of sinful desires and good plans alike into the hands of the God whose will is immeasurably wiser than either; the war-declaration against the three enemies who suppress the Gospel; the groaning that the Spirit inhabits and translates; the waiting that is simultaneously the posture of Psalm 130 and the confidence of Romans 8:28–39. Nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Luther says the Third Petition is a declaration of spiritual war against the three enemies, not a resigned acceptance of whatever happens. Praying it guarantees the holy cross, the hostility of the world, and the requirement to hold firm under pressure. How does understanding the petition as an active request rather than a passive concession change the way a congregation member prays it during a genuinely difficult season? The Broken Good Will: Gethsemane Luther’s most pastorally penetrating application of the Third Petition is his observation about what must be surrendered. The obvious answer is sinful desires: anger, greed, pride, revenge. But Luther insists that the petition requires the surrender of our good plans as well. He points directly to Christ in Gethsemane: not my will, but thine, be done. Christ’s prayer was not the surrender of a sinful desire but the surrender of a genuinely human preference for the avoidance of suffering, a preference that was not wrong in itself. The point Luther draws is that even our good and noble intentions are immeasurably less than God’s will, which is immeasurably wiser and more gracious than anything our best human planning can devise. God frequently breaks the good will of His saints, Luther observes, to protect them from a false and treacherous pride: the confidence that because their plans were pious and their intentions were pure, those plans must be what God intends. The breaking of the good will teaches the specific form of dependence Psalm 130 embodies: waiting for the Lord, not for the arrival of one’s own carefully constructed solution. Romans 8:28’s all things work together for good is the theological form of the same surrender: the good being worked is not the good we specified but the good that God’s immeasurably superior wisdom designs. The Third Petition is the daily practice of releasing both the sinful and the righteous plans into God’s hands. Discuss: Luther says God breaks not only sinful desires but good and noble plans, to protect His people from a proud confidence in their own piety. Christ’s Gethsemane prayer is the model: the surrender of a genuine human preference, not a sinful one. Why is the surrender of a plan we believe is genuinely good and pious often harder than the surrender of something we know is wrong, and what does the Third Petition require to be done with that difficulty? The Inexpressible Groanings Luther’s most pastorally comforting application of the Third Petition is his treatment of what happens when a person cannot pray it. Romans 8:26 says we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with groanings too deep for words. Luther’s exposition of the Third Petition draws on this directly: when we are brought to the Gethsemane hour and are reduced to a weak, hidden sigh, choked by the roaring terrors of sin, death, and the devil, we feel that our prayer is nothing. But Luther says that in God’s hearing, even this tiny, broken groaning is an exceedingly strong cry that fills heaven and earth. The reason is not that the broken sigh is inherently powerful but that the Spirit inhabits it. Romans 8:26 does not say the Spirit assists our prayer; it says the Spirit intercedes with His own groaning on our behalf. The person who cannot articulate the Third Petition, who can only exhale in the direction of God from the depths of Psalm 130, is not praying a less adequate version of Thy will be done; she is praying it in the form in which the Spirit prays it through her. Luther’s assurance is specific: this groaning completely drowns out the terrifying voices of all our enemies in the ears of God. Psalm 130’s I wait for the Lord is not a confident declaration; it is the last posture of someone who has nothing else. That is enough. Discuss: Luther says the Spirit takes even the faintest broken sigh and translates it into a perfect prayer that fills heaven and drowns out the voices of every enemy. Romans 8:26 grounds this in the Spirit’s own intercession rather than in the quality of the human prayer. How does a pastor preach the Third Petition to a congregation member who is in the condition Psalm 130 describes, in the depths, unable to find words, and who fears that her inability to pray properly means God is not hearing?