Q-and-A: What Do You Think of Prayer to the Saints?

[I write these Q-and-A columns for a local chain of suburban newspapers and for our congregation's newsletter. They're based on real questions I've gotten. I hope that you find them helpful.]

I’ve been asked, “What do you think of the whole notion of asking saints to pray for us?”

When I began to consider this question, I pictured Cole Sear, Haley Joe Osment’s character in the movie, The Sixth Sense, whispering, “I pray to dead people.”

That’s because the term saint, as popularly understood, is someone who has died.

When used of living people, we’re usually talking about someone we think especially virtuous. “He’s a saint,” we say.

In the Roman Catholic tradition, long-deceased believers in Christ are honored as saints, often because the beatified persons are thought to be the agents behind miracles occurring after their deaths.

Other Christian traditions, like my own, infomally recognize some persons with the title, saint, because they’re thought to be good examples of faith. That’s why we Lutherans have so many churches named Saint Paul, Saint John, Saint James, and even a few Saint Olaf’s and Saint Jacob’s.

But the Bible has a very different understanding of the term, saint. There, a saint is a sinner who trusts Jesus Christ as God and Savior. A saint isn’t someone who is especially virtuous, according to the Bible, but someone who believes in Jesus Christ as the Savior Who erases the power of sin and death over their lives.

Saints are, simply, forgiven sinners. This is why in his New Testament letters, for example, Paul instructs recipients to “greet the saints”; he wants to say, “Hello” to other forgiven sinners like himself.

If you believe in Jesus Christ and have turned from sin, you are a saint. Period.

So, what do I beieve about praying to departed people we think were especially faithful?

I understand the comfort it may bring to do so, especially when the saint to whom we direct our conversation is someone we knew and loved. I heard a Baptist preacher say once that after his wife died, he often asked her to put in a good word for him with God.

But we really don’t need another intermediary between God and ourselves. We already have one. His Name is Jesus Christ. Jesus has told us, “I will do whatever you ask in My Name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in My Name you ask me for anything, I will do it.” [John 14:13-14]

Just in case you have a sense of foreboding because you know that Jesus and God the Father are one (John 14:7), put your mind at ease. Because of His humanity, Jesus understands everything that we go through in our lives. In Jesus, the New Testament says, we don’t have an advocate “unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” Because of that, we’re told that we can “approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” [Hebrews 4:15-16]

In the risen Jesus Christ, we have someone who understands our humanity and has the divine power to hear and answer our prayers. Jesus tells us, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” [John 14:6] I believe that prayers offered in Jesus’ Name are ushered into the very heart of God the Father and no third party, however saintly, needs to be involved.