The Way Prayer Makes a Difference

The Way Prayer Makes a Difference
Psalm 6

Two of my friends are celebrating their golden wedding anniversary, and I have been asked to contribute to the greetings book that will be presented to them at the celebratory party. So I wrote that my first wife, Ann, sat up in her cot in the hotel room where she is sleeping under the caring eye of Jesus (John 14:2), declared “How marvelous!” and then went back to sleep until resurrection day. It is an imaginary fancy, but it depends on the reality of the way the New Testament describes our situation when we die, and it is not more fanciful than the accounts the Bible gives of Samuel waking up to give Saul one last dressing down or of people leaving their tombs to go walk about after Jesus dies (1 Samuel 28; Matthew 27). The underlying idea that death means resting in Sheol is one that runs through the Bible—the difference between Old and New Testaments is precisely that Jesus’ death and resurrection change the situation by establishing that our stay in the lodging house will be temporary. In the meantime, however, all you do there is doze, with Jesus keeping an eye on you...