Lent Midweek

John 4:5-30, 39-42 - Lent II-V/Midweek - March 7 (14, 21, 28), 2012 
Thy Will Be Done

On Ash Wednesday, when we began this midweek Lenten series on the Lord’s Prayer, I used my daughter Nadia as an example of a child asking something from her father.  Just as the words “please” and “thank you” teach children that the things they receive from their parents are undeserved gifts, so also the words “Our Father” teach us who it is that gives us everything we have. 

Although at the time my daughter didn’t have the foggiest idea the point I was trying to make, she sure thought it was neat that I said her name.  So did her big brother.  In fact, after church, my son asked me why I didn’t mention him.  He said, “I want you to talk about me in your sermon.”  Well, as with other silly requests that little boys make, this was a fine opportunity to teach yet another lesson: You can’t always get what you want. 

Children don’t always know what to ask for or how to ask.  They just say “I want, I want, I want.”  They look inside of themselves and express the natural desires that they find.  And so they pray: “My will be done!”  I suppose that’s why we have to tell them “no” so often.  But sometimes children will ask for things that they want, and then get them, because they just happen to ask for something that we already know they need, and that we were going to give them anyway.  It’s pretty convenient when this happens.  In fact, it prevents a lot of headaches to teach our children to want what they already need, and to request what we’re already going to give them. 

And this is what God teaches us as well.  Just like children, we need to be taught what we should want in order that we might ask for what we need.  We need God’s will to be done.  That is to say, WE NEED WHAT GOD WANTS. 

Jesus is God.  In our text this evening, Jesus wanted water.  He Himself created it.  But the flesh and blood He assumed as true Man required it.  And so He asked for it.  In the fourth Petition to the Lord's Prayer, Jesus teaches us to ask God for our daily bread, which of course includes water.  We are to ask for everything that we need to support this body and life.  This is what Jesus did, and so we do too.  And as it was in the case of Jesus, that the Father provided for the livelihood of the body that bore our sin, so also He provides for our bodies that are born in sin.  He does this purely out of grace. 

Although the order of the petitions are kind of being shuffled a bit with this preaching rotation, it is significant that Jesus teaches us to pray that the will of the Father be done on earth as it is in heaven even before He teaches us to pray for our earthly needs.  Why is this?  Because God knows what we need even before our stomach grumbles.  That’s why.  More than that, God is willing, that is, God wants to give us more than what our bodies yearn to receive.  And God’s good and gracious will is done. 

And that is why Jesus teaches us to pray that it may be done among us also.  WE NEED WHAT GOD WANTS.  Jesus came to do the Father’s will.  To speak of the Father’s will is one and the same as to speak of the will of Jesus.  And I can think of nowhere that this is more beautifully expressed than in that great Lenten hymn of ours, A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth:

“Go forth, My Son,” the Father saith,
“And free men from the fear of death,
From guilt and condemnation.
The wrath and stripes are hard to bear,
But by Thy Passion men shall share
The fruit of Thy salvation.”

“Yea, Father, yea, most willingly
I'll bear what Thou commandest;
My will conforms to Thy decree,
I do what Thou demandest.” 

The will of the Father and the Son are one.  Jesus wanted water.  That means that the Father wanted to give it to Him.  But there was something that God wanted more—even more than what His Son needed to live.  Here Jesus encountered a sinner.  And her need for something much greater than His own bodily need distracted Him from His original request.  Forget the water!  And so instead Jesus offered her water that only He could give. 

Yes, it is the Father’s will to give us what quenches the thirst of our tongue.  But first and foremost it is the Father’s will to quench our thirst for righteousness.  And so it is the Father’s will to teach us to want what He wants to give us. 

Jesus offered this woman the still waters to which the Good Shepherd leads His sheep to drink.  The Good Shepherd leads His sheep to Himself—to His own suffering and death that give eternal life to those who are perishing.  Jesus offered what He lived a holy life to earn for sinners.  He offered what required not only that He deny Himself a drink of water and other bodily needs, but that He give up His very life-blood on the cross to atone for your sins and mine – even as water and blood flowed from His pierced side.  By offering her what she did not ask for (and could not have asked for, and what we in our sin would not even want), Jesus was teaching her and teaches us what we all need. 

But this woman did not immediately know her need.  Here was an upstanding Jewish man speaking to a lowlife Samaritan woman who was not of the house of Israel.  But, just like my kids on Ash Wednesday, she may have thought it was pretty neat, but she didn’t have the foggiest idea what Jesus was talking about.  Sure, she wanted some—living water that if you drink of it, you won’t thirst again!  Great!  But she didn’t know what she was asking for.   She was thirsty for the wrong thing.  ^{***^} She thought this would fill some material need of hers, but that’s not what the gospel does.  She needed to learn her true need. 

And look at when she finally realizes that Jesus was offering something with a spiritual benefit.  It’s when He calls her out on her sin.  “Go get your husband,” He says.  “Ah, but you’ve had five already, and you’re living in sin right now.”  This woman was a sinner.  She knew it.  God in heaven knew it.  And now standing before her was God on earth revealing to her conscience what she needed the most. 

When we pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” what are we praying?  Are we telling God what we want?  What do we want?  First we must know what we need——and we need to know that we are sinners.  We need to know that the sinful corruption we confess every week is not just an incidental inconvenience that we will die someday, or that we make mistakes sometimes.  No.  We need to know that our very will is a will that is captive to sin and that strives against God’s will.  That it is fundamentally evil, and that our souls deserve damnation. 

What must be revealed in your life to prove this to you as it was proved to the woman in our text?  She was a fornicator.  Are you?  Or do you hold grudges?  Do you lie to people?  Do you steal?  Do you gossip?  The woman in our text was married five times before.  How many times have you returned to the same sins that weigh down your conscience?  How often do you want what God forbids?  Do you see your need, dear Christian? 

Then look at what God wants and see your need fulfilled.  As His eternal Son reigns with Him in heaven, the Father wants to send Him to serve under the law.  As Jesus lives a perfect life that merits more than what God could ever create, the Father wants Him punished.  As His anguish-stricken Child pleads on the Mt. of Olives to take the cup of His wrath away, nonetheless the Father gets what he wants – that Jesus commence His journey to Mt. Calvary to suffer and die for the sins of the world.  JESUS DOES THE FATHER’S WILL.  That’s what God wants.  He wants what we need.  And so we pray that His will be done.   

On the cross God’s will was done to save us all from all our sin and guilt.  Christ has borne it for us, and has left it in the grave from which He rose.  There we see God’s will done—where we see our sins forgiven and our victory won.  But where is God’s will done today?  In the Small Catechism, Martin Luther says that God’s good and gracious will is done,

When [He] breaks and hinders every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature, which do not want us to hallow God’s name or let His kingdom come; and when He strengthens and keeps us firm in His Word and faith until we die. This is His gracious and good will. 

The Samaritan woman asked where we are to worship the true God – on this mountain or that – where does God want us?  But we today neither go to the Mt. of Olives nor to the Mt. of Calvary.  No, instead we gather where His name is hallowed and His kingdom of grace and mercy comes by the pure preaching of His word, and administration of His sacraments.  We worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth by praying in faith this little petition here.  Because in this petition we learn to want what God wants.  And so living waters flow from our hearts unto everlasting life.  That is, by His word, God works in our hearts the faith that is certain that for Jesus’ sake God’s will is good and gracious toward sinners. 

My son James asked me to mention him in my sermon.  That’s what he wanted.  And I suppose it doesn’t do much harm, if it doesn’t distract you too much.  But sometimes our wants do distract us.  And so God must gently tell us “no” in order to point us to where He always says “yes.”  Just as we modify our children’s requests for pop and junk-food to fit their real needs for bread and water, so also God modifies our requests.  Whatever else we may ask of Him, one thing is certain – that He will always give us that one thing we need.  And so we pray that He would continue to do so. 

We don’t pray, “My will be done.”  We pray “Thy will be done.”  After every plea that He would spare us from pain, heal our loved-ones, protect those who travel – and so forth – after every request we make, we append this petition, “Thy will be done, not ours.”  But this is no gamble.  This does not render our prayers meaningless.   No, it renders our prayers acceptable and pleasing to God in heaven.  Because this prayer can only be prayed by faith in Christ who shows us the Father’s good and gracious will by fulfilling it on the cross.  When we pray that God’s will be done, we are telling Him that we want what He wants.  We are telling Him that we love the Love by which He loved us, and that we trust in that holy sacrifice that is ever before His eyes.  And He always answers this prayer.  Even if He does not give us all the little things we want, He most certainly will give us what we need — here on earth and forever in heaven. 

In Jesus’ name, Amen.