This Sunday is Trinity Sunday, so we are going to sing a song about prayer! It might be surprising to think of prayer as Trinitarian, probably because we tend to think of prayer as something we do before God.
The song starts with Jesus and the Holy Spirit pleading to the Father on our behalf. Both of them say “don’t look at their faults, look at us! Look at the righteousness of the Son that clothes them and the life of the Spirit that fills them.” This picture of the Trinity is laid out for us in Romans 8. Jesus, having died and risen from the grave, is now interceding at the right hand of God (v. 34), and the Spirit “intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (v. 26). This isn’t two-against-one, either. The Spirit and Son don’t have to persuade the Father against his will. He gladly hears their cry. After all, he didn’t spare his own Son! Will not he not “graciously give us all things (v. 32)?”
Here’s where this becomes concrete for us. When our sins and our weakness are exposed, Jesus opens his hands and shows his wounds. The Father gladly accepts the Son’s prayer for us, because he gladly accepts the Son that he offered. When we feel lost, homeless, and alone, the Spirit testifies that we have been adopted as God’s children and are now heirs with Jesus. The Father gladly accepts the sons and daughters that he has made his own. When we pray, and maybe even more when we can’t find the words to pray, the Spirit prays over us in the power of the Triune God. That means that even when anxiety, doubt, fear, or just sheer stupidity tie down our hearts and tongues, our little prayers get drawn into the life of the Triune God. And the Father is glad to hear them.
Let Trinity Sunday be a reminder that God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit delights in hearing and answering your prayers, and God’s prayers for you are even greater. He delights in giving you every good thing. He delights in the painful soul surgeries that pull the idols out of your heart. He delights in the divine adoption that makes you a co-heir with Christ. He delights in your salvation. When you struggle to remember, or to measure up, look at Jesus and the Spirit pleading for you before the Father. It is enough.
Listen to "Before the Father" Here!
-Justin