Rev Ever­son Sie­u­nar­ine

One se­ri­ous re­spon­si­bil­i­ty we all bear as mem­bers of one fam­i­ly, one com­mu­ni­ty and one na­tion is to pray for one an­oth­er.We all live in a world in­fect­ed by mil­i­tarism, racism and greed for pow­er. We have to fight the temp­ta­tion to be al­ways judg­ing and con­demn­ing. Pray­ing for or in­ter­ced­ing for oth­ers is to reach out in love and con­cern, to ask God to give to all His chil­dren the bless­ings we seek for our­selves.

When the Lord threat­ened to con­sume the peo­ple with his anger against their idol­a­try Moses plead­ed, "Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring dis­as­ter on your peo­ple." (Ex­o­dus 32:12) We read that the Lord changed his mind. Sim­i­lar­ly, when the Lord was pro­nounc­ing his judge­ment on Sodom and Go­mor­rah, Abra­ham asked him, "Will you in­deed sweep away the right­eous with the wicked?" (Gen­e­sis 18:22) Abra­ham plead­ed that the peo­ple be for­giv­en if fifty right­eous peo­ple are found with­in the city. He then re­duced the num­ber to 45, then to 30, then to 20 and then to ten. Abra­ham could not save Sodom and Go­mor­rah but he felt it was his du­ty to in­ter­cede for them. The word of the Lord came to the prophet Ezekiel con­cern­ing the dis­hon­esty, vi­o­lence and hypocrisy of the princes and priests.

The word said, " I sought for any­one among them who would re­pair the wall and stand in the breach be­fore me on be­half of the land, so that I would not de­stroy it, but I found no one." (Ezekiel 22:30) When we pray for God's mer­cy and for­give­ness on those who are dis­obey­ing his will we are "re­pair­ing the wall." We are al­so ac­knowl­edg­ing our own sin­ful­ness and par­tic­i­pa­tion in evil. The best among us al­ways need peo­ple to re­mem­ber us in their prayers. Af­ter Je­sus faced the temp­ta­tions in the desert "sud­den­ly an­gels came and wait­ed on him." (Matthew 4:11) We can be min­is­ter­ing an­gels to peo­ple who have faced or who are fac­ing dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances. Our prayers for them can be a re­al source of their re­newed strength. When Je­sus went to pray in Geth­samene he re­flect­ed on his im­pend­ing cru­ci­fix­ion and be­came "griev­ed and ag­i­tat­ed." The dis­ci­ples were sent a lit­tle fur­ther from him and were told by Je­sus to stay awake with him. But when he re­turned to them he found them sleep­ing. "Could you not stay awake with me one hour?" (Matthew 26: 40) This was a very crit­i­cal time for Je­sus and how he need­ed the vig­i­lance and com­fort­ing as­sur­ance of friends who would be with him to the very end! None among us is so spir­i­tu­al­ly strong and in­de­pen­dent that we do not need oth­ers to "stay awake" with us.

Paul told the Colos­sians that since he heard of their love in the Spir­it, "we have not ceased pray­ing for you." (Col. 1: 9 ) He al­so ex­hort­ed be­liev­ers to "pray with­out ceas­ing."Pray­ing for one an­oth­er de­liv­ers us from self-cen­tered­ness and wrong pri­or­i­ties. When we pray for jus­tice, peace and right­eous­ness to pre­vail in our world we are re­mind­ing our­selves we are part of this suf­fer­ing world. The star­va­tion and de­struc­tion we read or hear about is more than head­lines and ar­ti­cles. We are al­ways called to be light in the dark­ness, the light of love, the light of good deeds, the light of prayer.