That Time Jesus Used a Spiritual Cop-Out
Prayer in the age of resurrection.
“Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat” (Luke 22:31).
I preached on this passage in the weeks leading up to Easter, but it requires a second look. If there is anything wrong with Easter, it’s that it swallows up everything around it. That’s hardly a problem, but we don’t want to miss what this little passage teaches about prayer, power, and the age in which we live.
Jesus doesn’t seem too flustered by the fact that Satan is hunting his followers. It reminds me of the alarmingly relaxed conversation between God and the devil in the Book of Job (Job 1:7-8). Jesus had bigger problems than Peter that night, so maybe that’s why he’s so nonchalant. Or maybe his peace is theological; he knows what the devil is up to, has authority over him, and had already dictated how much sifting the devil could do.
Imagine, however, what it felt like to be Peter. Imagine hearing that Satan, not some lesser demon, demanded access to you. He wanted to sift you, devour you. I applaud Peter for not bursting into tears on the spot! Instead, he starts thumping his chest, which is the macho version of peeing his pants.
The most surprising part of this, however, is how Jesus, not Peter, responds to the Satanic threat. He tells Peter, “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail” (Luke 22:32). When we remember what Jesus was capable of, it is startling that all he does is pray.
Jesus Prays?
If Jesus said that Satan was after you, wouldn’t you want him to do more than pray? For starters, I’d ask Jesus to stop him! I would also take comfort in all the times I had seen Jesus flex over the powers of darkness.
Like that time beyond the Jordan River, and the man infested demons. He was a terror to everyone, but Jesus talked to him like you would a neighbor. Jesus even made the demon identify himself, and there were thousands. The guy could break chains and shackles, but the demons who gave him that power were terrified of Jesus (Luke 8:26-33). That’s what I’d want to see. That’s power.
Jesus only had to say the word, and Satan would leave Peter alone. And if I were Peter, I would be offended that Jesus was going to let it play out. I would also be nervous that I was getting swept up in the hour of darkness (Luke 22:53). But most of all, I would be terrified that Jesus was using a spiritual cop-out: “I’ll pray for you.”
We pray for people when we don’t know what else to do. It’s the admission that their pain and their problems are things we cannot solve. I’ve long said that Psalm 131:1 is the posture of prayer, precisely because it admits that things are “too great and too marvelous for me.”
When a friend needs a ride to the airport, we take them; when they are dying of cancer, we “pray for them.” That’s why prayer feels like a cop-out to me, because I don’t feel like I am helping people where they need it most. I pray because my hands are tied. But Jesus? Were his hands tied? That’s scarier than Satan wanting to sift me like wheat.
The Resurrection Changes Things
The resurrection brought power to the daily lives of believers (Romans 8:11), but it did other things too. If you read Luke’s two books back-to-back, you’ll notice that the resurrection eventually made things a lot more ordinary.
By the time Jesus comes out of the tomb, Luke is already preparing us for the Book of Acts. The women see the empty tomb, not Jesus, and the men are left having to decide whether they will believe the message. That’s the resurrection reality: it is an age of faith, not sight. In fact, Thomas is dubbed “doubting Thomas” because he demanded pre-resurrection clarity. He wanted nail holes, but Jesus had already switched to something different: believing instead of seeing (John 20:29).
That’s why Jesus offered to pray instead of fight. A new age was dawning, and it would be one marked by faith and words. Jesus had the power to cast out demons, but he wasn’t going to stop the devil from hunting Peter. Jesus was more interested in Peter’s faith. “I have prayed for you,” says Jesus, “that your faith may not fail.”
Faith would get Peter through the crisis. He would emerge with a ministry of helping others believe. You can hear the echo of his crisis when he talks about our faith being tested by fire (1 Peter 1:7), and how it can help us resist the devil (1 Peter 5:9). Jesus prayed for Peter’s faith because Peter had to become a man of faith. Jesus, for his part, was becoming our intercessor (Romans 8:34).
Let’s Pray!
Jesus could do anything he wanted, but he chose to pray. It was his first option, not his last. I’m still trying to wrap my brain around that. Jesus shows us that praying for each other’s faith is the new way to win. It’s so ordinary that it can almost be disappointing, but if it’s good enough for Jesus it should be good enough for us.
It actually makes me want to pray more, because it’s something I can do. How many times did the disciples fail to do what Jesus did, yet we can do this. Jesus wasn’t using a spiritual cop-out when he prayed; he had changed how he would fight. Jesus is building his church with his prayers and our faith. It’s how he will destroy the devil, and that is true power.