This sermon could well be called, "How to pray." Praying is an important part of our life as Christians, and we learn it best when we are under distress. Doesn't experience prove this statement? When have you found that you were most faithful about your prayer life? Isn't it when you are praying that your aunt doesn't die? Isn't it when your family is falling apart? Isn't it when you are praying you could find a decent paying job? Isn't it when you just heard you might have cancer? Isn't it when your adult child is getting into trouble or has wandered from the faith? You pray and you pray. Don't you?

It's easy to pray. It's easy to beg. It's not so easy to believe, which is why the hymn we just sang spoke about absolution and not just answers. Sometimes we get this idea that God is going to grant whatever we ask, as long as we ask it, or ask it enough. That will lead us to beg. We will beg and beg. But what happens when we don't get what we want? When we don't get what we think we should? We conclude, "It doesn't work. It's no use. He's not listening."

Let me tell you, and make sure you don't miss this point, believing He will give you what you want, is not the believing I'm talking about. I'm talking about believing that no matter what happens, God is still your loving Father, and this because of Jesus Christ.

That's what this woman in our text does. Oh yes, it looks like she just keeps begging because she is convinced that God is going to give her what she wants. But perhaps we could say that was what was going on only up to the point after Jesus' first response. You remember what happens. She calls out to Jesus, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon." He ignores her. He says absolutely nothing the first time she prays.

I'm sure some of you have felt that. "He didn't give me what I was praying for. But I'm not going to give up that easily. No, I'll keep praying." So you do. So did she.

Do you remember she got her answer? "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."

I would say that would be pretty effective to get most of us off His back. Yeah, we planned to pray more, but when you get an answer like that, that pretty much takes the wind out of your sails.

Here's where we separate the men from the boys, so to speak. Who would keep on praying when you get a response like that? It sure sounds like it would be a waste of time. She didn't think so. Why? Because she knew who He was. She knew what He said He was, and that God doesn't lie. She knew this was God in the flesh and that God was gracious. She knew the answer she was getting was not His real answer. So she keeps on praying. That's where we want to be.

It's not just praying anymore. Now, it's wrestling. She goes hand to hand and even head to head with Jesus when His last answer, right before He heals her, is to call her a dog. She agrees with what He said about her, but counters, "The dogs are still given scraps." She knows He will still show mercy.

Wrestling. It's what Jacob was doing in our Old Testament lesson. Yes, Jacob was literally wrestling.

I know a little about wrestling. I wrestled for one year. The problem was, it was in college. People said I was crazy. They were right. It's just that I was this slight 130 pounder as a freshman, and the coach saw a way to fill the 118 lb weight class. I guess it was better to stick a guy out on the mat and lose 6 points than to just give the other team those points, without some kind of challenge. No, actually, I enjoyed it. I poured my heart into it. I cut weight, sweating and spitting and fasting and all the while tried to learn all the moves. I was getting stronger, but really all I should have been doing, was strengthening my neck. That's what seemed to get worked the most in a match. The whistle would blow and in less than a minute or so, I was looking up at the lights. But no, my eyes wouldn't have been looking straight up. I may have been on my back, but I would be doing a neck bridge, trying to keep my shoulders blades from touching, which couldn't last for too long. So, if I wanted to see what it was like to grapple, I had to rely on my practice in the wrestling room. Jacob, apparently, was a much better wrestler.

And that's what it's like in prayer. It's not just, "God do this," but rather a struggle with Him, grappling with Him, even more grappling with yourself. It's not so much praying, "Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest," but observing the times and the reasons when you don't.

Let's look at that prayer and its occasions a little closer. It used to be a given that people would pray before meals. It isn't anymore. I suppose part of the reason is because families have been going out to eat so many times for so long or that it's "grab a bite here or there" that we hardly even realize we are eating or haven't prayed. But what about when you are out to eat? You sit down at the table, and maybe now you don't even think about it, but at one point you may have made a conscious decision not to pray. Why? Why don't you anymore? This is the wrestling match of prayer.

Don't get me wrong. It's a good discipline to pray before you eat, when you wake up and when you go to bed, but praying isn't just the simple little rhymes we learned when we were kids. Praying is thinking about what we are saying when we say them, or expanding on them, meditating on them, turning them over and over in our head.

The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray the way John had taught his disciples. Jesus said, "When you pray, say, 'Our Father who art in heaven...'" Are these just words? Why do I as a pastor invite you to pray this prayer oftentimes by saying, "Lord, blah, blah, blah and teach us to pray?" Surely, if we don't have to look at the words, we must already know how to pray it, so why do we keep saying, "Teach us to pray?"

Because they aren't just words. They are thoughts for our meditations. They take us beyond things on the surface and probe into things more sublime. We are in Lent, when we turn our attention to being better prepared for our celebration of Easter. It's when we fast and pray and are more devoted to our devotional life. Our goal is a stronger faith which calls for learning to look at Jesus more and ourselves less. Our prayer life is where we wrestle and learn how to do that.

The woman in our text was convinced that Jesus was merciful and gracious and that what He was showing her was not what He was. Jacob said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." Both of them were convinced that God had blessings for them, although they didn't know what those blessings would be. But both were convinced God was gracious. This is what we learn as we pray.

How many of us pray about your spiritual life? Do we pray that we will hear the Law being spoken to us? The Gospel? Do we pray for help against temptations? Do we pray about our willingness to look to the cross for help?

The cross is where we see God's grace and mercy. As St. Paul says, "He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up, how will He not, along with Him graciously give us all things?" Unlike Jacob and this woman, we rely on a word that has already been fulfilled. We can see the cross, and know what God has already done for us.

Jesus used to wrestle in prayer. He would pray the Psalms, and you can't help wondering that He was doing it especially for when the big test would came when He would be on the cross. Up until that time He would wrestle with His Father in prayer. And when He would wrestle with His Father, it was always fair.

But when He was going to the cross the rules changed. In wrestling, certain moves are illegal-headlocks, scissors, double half-nelsons, body slams, and anything else that could injure your opponent. All of a sudden His Father was basically doing these very things. Jesus knew they would come, but still it was so out of character. Whereas before His Father had shown great love and support for Him, now He seemed just plain angry, even hateful. Wrestling was hurting Jesus. In fact, it was killing Him.

And why does the Father do that to His Son? Why does He let this happen? Because He didn't want to do this to us. It's that simple. He would have, had He not done it to His Son. Basically, He did it because of His love for you and me. Yet, we know Jesus didn't stay dead. We know He rose from the dead, showing that all this was supposed to happen. And here is where our confidence lies. We look to the cross to see our God is gracious to us. We learn to look to the cross under every circumstance, especially when we are sore pressed. We learn to depend on our Father the way Jesus did, by praying.

Look at the Lord's Prayer and consider the explanations for each of the petitions. When you pray them, they take you beyond the simple begging we might be inclined to do. We may be praying for a job or for our family or restored health, but the 4th petition focuses our attention on the fact that what we had, and even what we have now is from the Lord. "God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that He might lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving."

Notice, it's not just asking for these things; it's asking that He would lead us to realize He gives this. We can say, "Yeah, I know He gives us these things," but we really don't know it. We need to realize this is from His gracious hands. We need to pray so we can start to get what that really means, especially when we don't have what we want. When we look to the cross, we see what He gives to His children or allows, is always according to His fatherly goodness.

What about when we are having trouble forgiving someone? Pray the fifth petition. Look at what we are saying when we pray, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." "We pray in this petition blah, blah, blah…We are neither worthy of the things for which we pray, nor have we deserved them. But we ask that He would give them all to us grace. "By grace." Stop there; Grace, on the basis of Jesus' death. We're back to looking at the cross. The power to forgive others comes by looking at the cross and seeing it is by this, by God's grace in it, we are forgiven. Now we can complete the thought. "So we too will sincerely forgive and gladly do good to those who sin against us." We pray, we wrestle and we learn to look at the cross.

What about if your concerns are about what I preach, or our church teaches, or the church at large? What do we pray? Here we are praying that the cross is clearly seen for us and for others. The devil wants nothing more than to hide it. We wrestle as we learn how important it is that it is held up high for all people to see it. We want His name to be hallowed, which means His Word is taught in its truth and purity. We want His kingdom to come, which means we are praying for God to send His Holy Spirit so that by His grace, we hear not just the Gospel, but also the Law speaking to us, and we may believe His holy Word and lead godly lives according to it. When we pray His will to be done, we are praying that He would block any efforts of our spiritual enemies that would prevent His Word from being taught purely and His Holy Spirit from being sent.

All this, as we pray, as we learn to pray. John Kleinig, one of the key players in Doxology, had this to say about prayer. "In prayer, we receive what we need for our daily work. In our daily work, we discover what we need to pray for."

As we pray this will orient more and more toward Sunday when will we be given what we have been praying for all week, what we've been seeing we need. We will hunger for His Word that tells us He forgives us. We will hunger for His body and blood, by which we are given a visible reminder of how that forgiveness was won. Our faith will grow stronger as we dine at His table both in Word and the Sacrament. With the help of the Holy Spirit as we pray, we will be receive these gifts more and more hungrily, thus preparing us for the Paschal Feast that will come at Easter. We will become like Jacob and the woman, seeing our Father as gracious and merciful, always ready to bless us because of Jesus, no matter what are our circumstances.

AMEN