The fifth chapter of Hebrews continues the teaching of Jesus as our High Priest. The first verses show the requirements of a priest and then declare Jesus as the High Priest by appointment of the Father. From that declaration the author takes the readers into the Garden of Gethsemane to see Jesus’ night of travailing prayer as a powerful example of prayer and a lesson in obedience through suffering.
One of the key points that the author makes here is that in Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane He was heard by the Father. We often measure our prayer lives by “answered prayers”, meaning the requests we make to God that He grants as we asked. What if the power and miracle of prayer was not having God do what we ask of Him but the reality that the God of all things actually hears us when we call on Him? The author doesn’t make a point that Jesus was answered, He makes the point that Jesus was heard. I believe that this reality of being heard by God creates hunger for prayer and a desire to sit with Him.
The most stirring point of the entire passage is that Jesus, even though He was a Son “learned obedience by the things which He suffered.” Suffering has a purpose, it is not random and it is not useless, I believe that it teaches us obedience. In the midst of the world’s greatest suffering Jesus learned obedience by choosing to follow the plans and fulfill the purpose of His Father. Prayer does not always change our situations but it can always change us. Jesus entered Gethsemane in a crisis, overcome by grief of bearing the wrath of God for our sin but He departed, after suffering in prayer, at peace and prepared to walk in His purpose as the Messiah.
If we would learn to rejoice in being heard I believe that we could pray with greater power than ever before. We could pray in the Spirit and by the Spirit. We could pray not for things to happen as we see them but for the purposes of God to be fulfilled through our lives. We could pray for the will of God even when it is different from our will. When we pray in this manner, God is glorified, we are changed and the power of Christ is unleashed not only upon us but through us. I pray that we will learn obedience through suffering and that we will choose to marvel at being heard by the God of all things!