Jesus' Prayer Life
“Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him.” Luke 22:39
Following is an excerpt from my third book The Point: Journey to Life. The excerpt is from Chapter 13, How Should We Pray? If you would like to preview the book, please click here.
Jesus taught a great deal about prayer. He told stories depicting various aspects of prayer and just before providing a template for prayer He said, “When you pray” pray like this.[i] His teaching presumes that His listeners pray and presumes we will pray, and He lived a life of prayer. Let’s look at His prayer life: how He prayed, when He prayed, and some of the events surrounding His prayers.
As we look at how Jesus lived, we see that it is important to find time to be alone in prayer every day. Jesus was always finding time to be alone in prayer. He got up early, while it was still dark, to sneak off alone to pray. He stayed up late and stayed out alone at night in prayer. On certain occasions He prayed all night alone. His life was bathed in prayer.
Jesus is God. He is pure, divine and holy. He is without sin. While Jesus was on earth in human form, He needed prayer all the time. If Jesus needed prayer, how much more do we need to pray? As I ponder this, I imagine images of the Holy, the Divine descending to earth, the place where Satan and his demons roam, and suddenly finding Himself submersed in sin, mucking around through the ugliness of the world, swimming through filth. The sinless One was surrounded by sin. He needed to continuously reconnect with God through prayer to maintain His supply of holiness, to wash off the filth of the world. If Jesus needed this, how much more do we need it?
Jesus regularly sought time and space where He could be alone to pray. Scripture indicates this was part of His normal routine:
“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” Mark 1:35
“Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Luke 5:15-16
“Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?” Luke 9:18
“About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray.” Luke 9:28
“One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’” Luke 11:1
Other passages explain that Jesus sought time alone in prayer in response to and in preparation for significant events. Jesus prayed all night before selecting the twelve disciples,[ii] He sought time alone in prayer before His arrest,[iii] and He sought time alone in response to John the Baptist’s murder.[iv]
Herod Antipas imprisoned John the Baptist because he spoke out against Herod’s decision to marry his brother’s wife. At the request of Herod’s niece and stepdaughter, he ordered the beheading of John the Baptist. When Jesus heard the news, He left in a boat on the Sea of Galilee seeking a solitary place to pray. He grieved the loss of His friend and relative, John the Baptist, and He fled the crowds desiring to be alone in communion with God.
A crowd of people walked along the shore tracking the boat carrying Jesus. When the boat stopped on the shore, a large crowd of people was there. Jesus left in search of time alone to commune with God, but He was unable to get away. They followed Him. After arriving at the shore, what did Jesus do? Did He rebuke the crowd? Did He send them home? Did He explain that He was grieving the loss of His friend John the Baptist? Did He publicly speak out against Herod, calling for rebellion? What did Jesus do?
He responded with supernatural grace. He showed compassion and love. He stopped fleeing and began ministering to the people, healing those who were in need and, when He saw that they were hungry, He asked the disciples to feed them. The disciples answered that they only had five loaves of bread and two fish, not nearly enough to feed so many people.
“Bring them here to me,” [Jesus] said. And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children. Matthew 14:18-21.
Jesus was grieving and He wanted to be alone in prayer, but people sought Him so He ministered to them and prayed a different prayer – He prayed for them to be fed. He prayed for a miracle and five loaves of bread and two fish fed thousands. We do not know how many people were present – if we assume each man came with a wife and two children it would be 20,000 people. We do not know how many were there, but it was a large crowd.
Look at His prayer. He took what God had already provided, thanked God for it, and trusted that God’s provision would continue. And God continued to provide.
After the brief detour and miracle meal, Jesus continued on His mission to find a quiet place away from people to commune with God. He dismissed the crowd, sent the disciples away by boat, and He walked alone to a mountainside to pray.[v]
In response to the horrific news of John the Baptist’s death, in response to being confronted personally by the sin of this world, Jesus sought time alone in prayer.
Jesus also went away alone to pray before significant events, like choosing His disciples and preparing for His arrest and crucifixion, but Scripture suggests that finding time alone with God was part of Jesus’ regular routine. The fact that He left everyone to pray and that prayer was part of the stories tied to significant events, would be like describing that He ate that day or He was breathing at the particular moment. Time alone with God in prayer was part of His regular routine, so of course it was tied to the significant events recorded in Scripture.
When Jesus was deciding whom He would name as His disciples, He prayed all night. He sought communion with God. He sought God’s holy guidance. Scripture explains:
“One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he designated apostles…” Luke 6:12-13
After the Last Supper, after the prayer quoted as John 17, before His arrest, Jesus walked with the disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. He left the disciples and went a little further to be alone in prayer. Matthew, Mark and Luke each record the event.[vi] In his first sentence describing the event, Luke wrote,
“Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him.” Luke 22:39
So Jesus regularly went to the Garden after dinner to pray, which may explain how Judas knew where He would be.
It was part of Jesus’ regular routine to seek time alone with God. He got up early to be alone with God, He stayed up late to be alone with God, and while in Jerusalem He regularly prayed in the garden on the Mount of Olives. If Jesus needed time alone with God in prayer, how much more do we need it?
[i] Luke 11:2
[ii] Luke 6:12
[iii] Matthew 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:39-46
[iv] Matthew 14:13
[v] See Matthew 14:1-23 and Mark 6:30-46.
[vi] Matthew 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:39-46