Deleted Scenes: Before he had his feet washed, Peter prayed (John 13:1-17)

The typical Sunday School answer would work here: “Jesus!” To have heard him praying to his Father would have been incredible. It would be impossible for anyone else to have the kind of intimacy and love in prayer that Jesus had. But as a far distant second place, I would love to have heard the prayers of Jesus’ disciples after his resurrection. What would it have been like for Peter to pray to the Lord as a 50 year old, when as a 20 year old he had actually walked with Jesus in the flesh? I imagine it would be prayer that sounded a lot like friendship. Our prayers can sometimes seem mechanical and cold. I don’t know if Peter’s would have ever sounded that way, given the relationship he had with Jesus.

I think about this because in some sense, you could see all of the disciples’ conversations with Jesus in the Gospels as prayer, even if they didn’t recognize it at the time. If Jesus is Lord and God, isn’t that true? That their conversations with Him were prayer? Think about the conversation between Jesus and Peter in John 13:6-10, which we looked at on Sunday. It starts with Peter expressing confusion about something his Lord was doing (washing the feet of the disciples). Have you ever spoken to God about that? Has anything in the world brought you to Him in prayer, confused about why He was (or wasn’t) acting in a certain way? Jesus replies to Peter by assuring him that his actions won’t make sense to Peter now, though he may understand later. I wonder how often that is God’s response to us in prayer: you don’t understand now and I can’t explain it to you. You need to trust me. However, we don’t like that, so we respond like Peter, trying to dictate the terms to God: “you will never wash my feet”. We might say thinks like, “God, I think what you need to do is ____.” “If you want me to believe in you, you’ll stop _____.” Instead of submitting to us, however, the Lord continues to correct us until we are willing to submit to Him. That’s where the conversation between Peter and Jesus ultimately lands. It’s a conversation, one where He allows us to bring all our half-formed thoughts and half-virtuous ideas before Him. But it’s not an even match. It’s not a symmetrical relationship. Ultimately, we will do well to surrender to His will, just like Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:36). I think John 13:6-10 actually represents a fairly common flow in our prayers!

Will you join me this next week (“Holy Week”) in praying for our church and for our community? We will have a 24/7 prayer chain running throughout the week, where we hope to have a series of people in our church praying at every hour of the day. You’ll see links for that in this newsletter. We’ll also have a Noon prayer time Monday-Thursday, and a worship and prayer night on Wednesday. Pray for our Good Friday services, pray for Easter Sunday, pray for the Easter Fair, pray for Alpha and Christianity 101. But in all of these prayers, ask the Lord to place on your heart what He wants to do, and pray for that. Ask that His will be done, not yours.

As I said in the sermon, we’re going to be creating some space for literal foot washing on Good Friday. Like Peter did (accidentally?), commit yourself to prayer beforehand, surrendering your will for your life and your church and your community to the Lord.