An Ancient Query
People have wondered why Jesus prayed, and there are many good reasons to explain why he did. Theologians have tried to answer this question throughout the history of the church. However, the simplest answer is that Jesus prayed because he felt the need to do so.
Jesus prayed because God gave him a strong desire and ability to pray.
Psalm 22 talks about different parts of Christ’s life, not just his crucifixion, which is talked about a lot in this Psalm. Christ started praying when he was born.
Psalm 22 is mainly about David, but it comes true in Christ. God prepared a body for Christ that was made by the Spirit in the Virgin Mary’s womb. Christ’s early prayer life was not as developed as it would be later in his life.
As he experienced more and faced challenges and struggles, his prayers developed more. Christ’s actions were directed by his heart, soul, mind, and strength, which were appropriate for his age and capacity for spiritual acts of reason.
He had faith from the womb, and it would bring out particular acts of faith when the time was right.
Christ trusted in God, and his religious life was faithful from when he was born to when he died. This Hebrew idea of spirituality is different from our current views because it celebrates the faith of children from the womb. Psalm 8 also talks about Christ’s religious life from the womb.
As a result of what Christ has done, we are now able to have very close and personal conversations with God the Father during our prayers.
Jesus prayed because of his special relationship with God the Father.
The first words we have from Jesus in Luke 2 show that he was dedicated to his Father and that he was doing his Father’s work.
The last words we have from Jesus in Luke 23 show that he trusted his Father and gave his life into his hands. After saying this, he died.
To understand how Jesus prayed, we need to pay attention to how he talked to his Father in heaven in the Gospels. Jesus regularly and passionately prayed to his Father.
This might seem normal to us, but it was not common for people to refer to God as “my Father” in prayer during Jesus’ time. Jews usually addressed God in prayer using terms like “Yahweh,” “my Lord,” “my God,” or “God of my father.”
The way Jesus talked about God as his Father in prayer was unique and had never been heard before. He would say things like, “Thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth” (Matt. 11:25).
According to Joachim Jeremias, a scholar of the New Testament, there is no other example in Jewish prayer where God is addressed as “Abba” or “Father” like Jesus did, whether in fixed liturgical prayers or in the free-form prayers recorded in Talmudic literature.
So, when Jesus prayed to God and called Him “Father,” it was something new and different that no one had done before. He mostly used “Father” when he prayed, even though it wasn’t a common way to address God at that time. This was a very important change, and it must have had a good reason.