Christ's Intercessory Prayers

Yesterday I wrote about how the scriptures teach that the Savior makes intercession for us in that He saves us from sin and death and gives us power to overcome our challenges.  There is also another way that He makes intercession for us—He literally prays for us.  One of the definitions of the word intercession is “a prayer to God on behalf of another,” and we see in multiple accounts in the scriptures that the Christ prays for us.  It would seem odd in some respects to think that our perfect, divine Savior would feel the need to pray for us to His Father, especially since He already has been “given all power” (D&C 84:28).  But that is exactly what He does as He seeks to intercede on our behalf.  We can hear the kind of prayer He offers for us in the Doctrine and Covenants: “Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him—Saying: Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be glorified; Wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life” (D&C 45:3-5).  If we can truly believe on His name, then we can know that, because of His great atoning sacrifice, He pleads our case to the Father that we might be given everlasting life. 

               There are numerous occasions in the scriptures in which the Savior prayed to the Father for those around Him.  The most famous example is the great intercessory prayer found in John 17.  The night of the beginning of His great atoning sacrifice He pled with His Father, “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are….  Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (John 17:11, 20-21).  What a marvelous experience it must have been for the apostles to hear His prayer and feel of His earnest desire for the salvation of their souls.  They must have taken great strength from that prayer as they took on the incredible task of spreading the gospel to the world in the subsequent decades.  On another occasion the Savior had told Peter, “But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not” (Luke 22:32).  Surely for those of us seeking like Peter to follow Him, even if we fail sometimes, He prays the same thing for us.  We see that He even prays for His enemies (as He taught us to do) when He was on the cross, pleading for the Roman soldiers: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).  He sought to intercede with the Father even for those who were hurting Him.

               When He was among the Nephites as the Resurrected Lord, He prayed for them in a most magnificent way: “He himself also knelt upon the earth; and behold he prayed unto the Father, and the things which he prayed cannot be written, and the multitude did bear record who heard him.”  It was such a powerful experience for these Nephites that they bore record in these words: “And no tongue can speak, neither can there be written by any man, neither can the hearts of men conceive so great and marvelous things as we both saw and heard Jesus speak; and no one can conceive of the joy which filled our souls at the time we heard him pray for us unto the Father” (3 Nephi 17:15, 17).  The next day when He returned He prayed among them in language similar to the great intercessory prayer, “Father, I pray thee that thou wilt give the Holy Ghost unto all them that shall believe in their words…. And now Father, I pray unto thee for them, and also for all those who shall believe on their words, that they may believe in me, that I may be in them as thou, Father, art in me, that we may be one.”  He continued praying, and again it was so marvelous that “so great and marvelous were the words which he prayed that they cannot be written, neither can they be uttered by man” (3 Nephi 19:21, 23, 34).  Surely these scriptures which show the Savior praying for others are meant to help us see that He likewise prays for each of us.  If we will truly believe in Him, He will pray that our faith fail not and that the Father ultimately will grant us everlasting life.