He Prayed all Night Long: An Exposition of Luke 6:12-16
Jesus’ ministry was certainly a busy one. He went from village to village, mostly in Galilee, and here this passage is followed by a mission trip to Tyre and Sidon in Gentile territory. We can only guess how exhausting this was to Jesus. When He went up into the mount for the night, it would seem to be a good time to get some much-needed rest. The disciples might have gotten some sleep that night, but not Jesus. The text says Jesus stayed up all night long in prayer to God. He had also spent all night in prayer at the end of the first chapter of Mark. The bulk of the first chapter of Mark is presented as though it happened on a single day which must have been exhausting. We also see Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane making a fervent night prayer while His disciples slept. These examples show that Jesus was a man of fervent prayer.
When we consider who Scripture reveals Jesus to be, fully divine as well as fully human, we might ask why prayer would be so important to Jesus. As Sovereign God, the Son, why would He need to pray at all. This same problem with prayer also persists in some Reformed circles which emphasize God’s Sovereignty who ordains all things which come to pass. What can prayer avail with a God who foreordains everything? This is indeed a difficulty, but it is necessary to affirm God’s absolute sovereignty as well as predestination. It can be argued whether predestination and election are based upon God’s foreknowledge of all events or whether foreknowledge is based upon the decree of God. But our hope has to be founded in a God who is able to save as well as willing to save. To reduce God from the “all powerful” to “most powerful” is a great heresy as a most powerful God could be overthrown by the collective power of lesser powers whose combined power might be greater than the power of God. This is exactly what Satan and his angels are trying to do. And humanity as a whole try to overpower God as well. But as the second Psalm states, God will laugh them to scorn. All the difficulty involved in praying to a Sovereign God is far less than praying to a God who may or may not triumph in the end. Wishy-washy prayer based upon this concept of God is weak nd avails little.
Seeing then that we worship an “all powerful” God who ordains all that comes to pass, how should we see prayer? It would be correct to see as suggested that God has ordained prayer as a means of communication. But it has to be more than just going through the motions of prayer, being careful to observe the proper reverence, form, and orthodox posture. Formal prayer does not avail much either. We have to pray, expecting God to hear and respond to our prayer. James tells us the effectual and fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much. As much as we might have to realize that our righteousness is quite lacking in respect to God, we cannot make that claim about Jesus. His prayers to God would be effective. Here, He was certainly persistent in prayer.
We must also remember that Jesus is fully human as well as fully divine. There is a great mystery here that is beyond our understanding. The human Jesus grew in grace and favor with God and man, even though as God He knew all. I am not going to try to solve this mystery. Let it be sufficient that it is mystery. As a human, Jesus was subject to fatigue, temptation, rejection and other human emotions. He did not sin, but as a human, He felt the full force of what we face. This means that like us, Jesus had to pray. We know that Jesus’ ministry was not in the power of His own person but was led by the Holy Spirit. Jesus did His mighty works in the power of the Spirit, just was we are called to be led by the same Spirit in our ministry. Jesus then serves as the example of the Spirit-filled life that we are to live. So as He prayed, so must we.
We are told in this passage that Jesus had a big decision to make. It says there were many disciples in His company which means more than the Twelve. On the next day, He chose twelve from this number to be Apostles. The Greek says He “elected for Himself” these twelve men. Certainly, this was one of the biggest decisions Jesus would have to make. God would have already foreknown the selection of them, but here the mystery of the two natures of Christ come into play. Jesus prayed all night long to decide which of the disciples He would choose for this special mission. One of these was Judas. The God who knows all knew all about Judas. His betrayal was prophesied in the book of Psalms centuries earlier. The end of the 6th chapter of John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus who had chosen the twelve said “One of you is the devil.” Jesus knew is advance. So why did Jesus choose Judas. If we judged by human standards, we wonder why Jesus, who had a large group of disciples would choose such a person. We should remember that what Judas did, he did willingly. Judas betrayed Jesus as was prophesied, but it was Judas who decided to do it.
We all would like to know more of the details which are couched in the mystery of God’s ways and thoughts which are far above our ability to grasp. The fallen nature demands full transparency. But we are incapable of understanding it in our own intellect even if more detail was given. The same is true for prayer. We would like to know more fully how it works rather than being satisfied that the fervent prayer of a righteous man is effective. The obedience of faith says that we pray because we are called to pray and not faint.
We tend to pray when we get into trouble. We do not understand what is happening to us or what we should do. Prayer becomes the last resort rather than the first. We try to understand and act out of our own resources. I wonder how effective the prayer of desperation is when God is not center to our life and thought. I am not saying that God does not show mercy to this kind of prayer. One of God’s attributes is to show mercy to those who deserve nothing. This is shown at the cross where Jesus freely decided to be hung upon for our sake. But Jesus, as we have noted, prayed so hard that his sweat mingles with blood. The effectiveness we gain from the cross was preceded by the effective cries of this same Jesus who chose his twelve apostles.
When we pray, we should also expect that at times it might seem that the decisions we make after fervent prayer do not seem to work out according to our expectations. But we are promised in this situation that God works out all things to good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. Even though we are not called t the formal office of Apostle, we are equally called of God. God has chosen us for Himself and is obligated to act in our best interest in the long term. We might pray for healing as Paul begged God three ties to remove the thorn in his flesh. God answered that His strength is made perfect in human weakness. Paul suffered much as was prophesied at his conversion. But Paul is with the LORD now. This is the ultimate good we are promised. When we remember that after Paul’s declaration in Romans that “all things work together for good” that all kinds of calamities that would try to separate us from Jesus will fail. This means that the Christian will face calamities, yes; but it also say that they will fail to separate us from the love of Jesus.
We also learn from this how important it is that we pray before we conduct the business of the church. This prayer must be fervent and not just perfunctory. We need to do more than go through the formal motions of prayer. We must pray believing that God actually directs the church. Prayers to rubber-stamp human made decisions will result in disaster. When is the last time a church body prevailed all night in prayer as we see Jesus do here? When we look at Acts, the Apostles after the Ascension remained in prayer for ten days before Pentecost. It was at 9AM, the time of morning prayer at the Temple that the Holy Spirit came down. When the Holy Spirit called two of the pastors at Antioch, Paul and Barnabas, they did not only pray, they fasted as well before they responded by laying their hands upon them and sending them. Why would God move these two men when things were going so well at Antioch? But the church prospered after their departure, and the mission of Paul and Barnabas bore much fruit. I could give countless examples of prayer from the Bible. These are as much examples for the church today as Jesus’ all-night prayer vigil, even though He must have been tired. It is time for this type of effective prayer to prevail in the church today. Instead of being weak and moribund, we might har the cries of new birth in her.
