According to the Bible, one of the oldest forms of prayer is “calling on the name of the Lord.” In fact, the first time we see people worshipping in Scripture is immediately after Cain is banished for killing Abel, and Adam and Eve begin having more children. The Bible says that from that moment, people began to call on God’s name.
In the ancient world, a name signified something about the person; if you knew someone’s name, you had a relationship with him or her. Consequently, in ancient religious practice, when someone called on their ancestral god’s name, it meant that he or she had a devotion to and worshiped said deity—that they knew that god.
Thus, it is no small matter when God revealed His name to Moses in Exodus 3:14. Nor is it inconsequential that the early Christians began to call upon the name Jesus to pray. The name Jesus, which means “God saves,” was first used in prayer following the Lord’s ascension into heaven. For calling this name, the book of Acts tells us, many were martyred.
By calling upon His name, early Christians not only displayed their love for Jesus, but also they testified to the belief that Jesus was the Lord of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob made flesh—a belief which many Jews of the time considered blasphemous.
In addition to saying Jesus’ name, the early Christians called upon Jesus for mercy, and a prayer developed which began to be known as the Jesus Prayer: Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Many of the Church’s earliest Fathers such as John Chrysostom and John Climacus allude to this prayer, and Chrysostom is particularly convinced that the prayer originated with St. Paul, who says that at the name of Jesus every knee will bend.
The fact that we are able to call upon Jesus’ name means that we know Him because He has revealed Himself to us. Thus, at the Last Supper He says, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (Jn. 15:15). Because we are His friends, we can have intimacy with Him, and the deepest intimacy we are given is the gift of His Holy Spirit, who presides in our hearts.
There in the heart (the biblical symbol of the deepest part of the person) the Spirit prays “Abba, Father.” And in doing so, He unites us to God. Thus, the prayer that begins with us audibly speaking the name “Jesus” resolves in silence, wherein our hearts the Holy Spirit prays the name that Jesus has revealed to us.
Jesus says during the high priestly prayer, “I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world; thine they were, and thou gavest them to me, and they have kept thy word” (Jn. 17:6). The name of God that Jesus reveals to us is “Father.” Through revealing this name, Jesus simultaneously reveals that God wants us to be His children. Thus, Jesus teaches us also that when we begin to pray we should also say, “Our Father.”
Because prayer is the center of a Christian’s life, knowing what to say when we pray is often difficult and sometimes frustrating. To alleviate some of this frustration, Jesus teaches us how to begin prayer—to enter into a place of solitude and to call upon our Father. Additionally, St. Paul teaches us to call upon the name of Jesus because there is no other name through which we are saved. He also tells us that our prayer should be ceaseless.
Upon reading that prayer should be ceaseless, one might ask, “How is it possible to pray always?” The answer from Paul is that when we are spiritually vulnerable, and when we let the Spirit pray within us, we also are praying simply by being.
Sometimes the best kind of prayer is the kind when we simply “exist” with God—not saying or doing anything, just being. If the name of God in Exodus is “I AM,” then to be like God we also must develop the virtue of “being” with Him.
By being with God, we imitate Jesus His Son, of Whom John’s Gospel says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” The Son of God rests before the Father. John simply says that they are with one another. Likewise, human friendship is often rooted in an ability to be silent and present with another. An example of this is the elderly married couple, who sit together in silence for a morning coffee. If God is to be our greatest friend, then it is okay for us to be silent with Him. In fact, it’s one of the best ways to pray, to listen, and to be intimate with the One who gives us the greatest gift a friend can offer—His life given to us on the cross (Jn. 15:13).
Editor’s Note: Dr. Alexander Harb’s book, The Kingdom of the Heart: Meditations from the Christian East, is available from Sophia Institute Press.
Photo by Chad Greiter on Unsplash
