Prayer: Three Loaves at Midnight by Scott Lyons

Prayer: Three Loaves at Midnight
Scott Lyons
3/27/2013
In the eleventh chapter of Luke’s Gospel, one of Jesus’ disciples asks him to teach them to pray. Jesus then teaches them the Lord’s Prayer. He then follows this teaching with the parable of the importunate friend, as it is sometimes known. A man who has been surprised by a friend’s visit goes to another friend’s house at midnight and asks for three loaves of bread, for he has nothing to feed his unexpected guest. He keeps asking, so the man gets up to get the bread for his friend—not because of friendship, but because of his friend’s persistence. It is easier to get the bread than to be bothered by the friend. This persistence is something we are born with. My children are masters of it. It is needing something so urgently that you keep asking, keep knocking, and keep seeking. And Jesus says that those who do so will be given whatever they need (Luke 11:8). Fathers do not give evil gifts to their children when they ask for food. When their children ask for food, fathers (who are sinful) give their children food. How much more, says Jesus, will our heavenly Father (who is good) give us the Holy Spirit?

Honestly, I have often felt as if Jesus were playing a trick on me here, seemingly promising one thing and then giving another. I wanted the gifts more than I wanted the Giver. This is understandable in children. But children must become men and women, and we often do not. I never understood what Jesus offered when he seemed to switch out “good gifts” for “the Holy Spirit.” I am not entirely sure I completely understand it now, other than this one thing: There is no switching out. The Holy Spirit is the one who encompasses every gift I need and desire, every joy. As C.S. Lewis writes in his essay “The Weight of Glory,” “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” Joy is what we are ultimately after. What we can’t imagine is that it has already been given. We only need eyes to see and open hands to receive it. The Holy Spirit is not some simpering wind that scatters when we turn against him. The Holy Spirit is fire, willing to make us all flame—but only if we are willing. Seraphim of Sarov, a nineteenth-century Orthodox monk, writes in On Acquisition of the Holy Spirit, “When the Spirit of God comes down to man and overshadows him with the fullness of his inspiration, then the human soul overflows with unspeakable joy, for the Spirit of God fills with joy whatever he touches.”

So it is not that Jesus responds to our persistence with tricks. He gives and he gives, but we do not understand what it is we long for. We don’t even know what it is that we truly desire. It is not the latest technology. It is not wealth or fame. It is not a spouse, not a child. It is Jesus. It is communion with and participation in his very life. How many times in Scripture does Paul say that we have been baptized into Christ or that we are in Christ? God desires to make the steel of our humanity incandescent with the fire of his divinity. This is the gift he offers: the Holy Spirit, who contains all gifts.

This brings us back to the parable of the importunate friend. “As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I go and stand before him?” (Psalm 42:1-2, NLT). Thirst for the Holy Spirit. Ask and keep asking, seek and keep seeking, knock and keep knocking; and God will give you the Holy Spirit. He is your three loaves of bread at midnight. He is more than anything you could ever ask or hope for. He is all you need.