SOMA UK has been running a School of Prayer this advent. I’ve been working with Susie Wright, the author and screenwriter, to share our love of different styles of prayer with an online group of fellow pilgrims. The age range has been from 18 to late 80s. The calls have included SOMA leaders from Uganda and Kenya. It has been a joy. 

We’ve been anchoring the 4 week School in Romans 8:26-27: 

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

Each online session lasts for one hour and explores 3 different types of prayer – with some input, discussion and then time to practice. We’ve looked at books from John Baillie’s Diary of Private Prayer (contemporary version edited by Susie), to Rees Howells Intercessor to Simon Barrington Ward’s The Jesus Prayer. Scripture, silence, and space have been a key part of the course, but so has honest sharing and personal reflections. As the focus changes every 15 minutes or so onto the next type of prayer it is possible to keep learning even if one session doesn’t fit with you. 

But the thing that has been particularly powerful for me, is silence. Sometimes guided and structured. Sometimes momentary as we wait on divine prompts to ‘pray in the middle voice’, sometimes punctuated by other people’s prayers, repeated prayers of liturgy. But a sense of poise. Of attentive longing. Of listening. Of being with others in the presence of God. Of deliberate created space. 

You can catch up with material soon at somauk.org/train, (where we will also be hosting a SOMA School of Prophecy, SOMA School of Spiritual Warfare and SOMA School of Leadership as well as other SOMA School of Prayer modules).  

In Revelation we get to hear a beautiful description of where our prayers end up. In some ways it is an anticlimactic moment, because it is what happens when the seventh seal is opened up. Seven the number of completion. Seven the number that should hopefully usher in the end… but even after the pause of Chapter seven (where we learnt that the Israel of God is a great multitude made up of every tongue and tribe), this seventh seal brings in silence – not the end. We have to go through two more cycles before the end comes into view. Cycles of trumpets and bowls… not sequential but echoing themes we have already seen in the seals. There is a sense that history is on repeat until the final trumpet blows and Jesus comes again. 

So what happens with the seventh seal: 

Silence. 

When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.

——-

Back in Chapter 5 we had learned that the 24 elders (12×2 – representing the 144000 and the multitude combined – the new Jewish/Christian one holy people of God) also had a hand to play in presenting the prayers: 

The four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people.  

They even have their own brand new worship song. For those who love to critique modern songs do note that while this focuses in four lines on the Lamb [Jesus] it also focuses in three lines on the priestly people from around the world who will be in his kingdom [the Church – the fruit of Jesus’ sacrifice]). 

1 “You are worthy to take the scroll
2      and to open its seals,
3   because you were slain,
4      and with your blood you purchased for God
5 persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.
6 You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
7      and they will reign on the earth.”

But here in Chapter 8 it is not the 24 elders in view presenting the prayers in heaven. It is seven angels, who we can assume are the seven archangels of Jewish tradition. We know their names from the Book of Enoch: Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Sariel, Gabriel and Remiel.  (Enoch 1:20). 

This ‘suggests divine collaboration with the desire of God’s people’ as the angels take over the duty of the elders and perform the ‘priestly task of offering up prayers and incense together.’1

The old temple in Jerusalem had two altars. That temple  by the time John is writing Revelation had been desecrated and destroyed by Romans just as Jesus had prophesied in Mark 13 / Matthew 24. One of those old altars was for burning incense. The other was for sacrificial lambs. In Revelation there is no need for a sacrificial lamb. The Lamb who is also the Lion is already on His throne, looking all at once both regal and like One who has been slain. So the remaining altar is for burning incense and offering prayers. There is still a role for that in heaven. 

Fire and earthquake accompany it to remind us of Mount Sinai and the revelation given to Moses of God’s ways. 

Picture credit: Richard Lyall ‘Crafty Curate’ www.richardlyall.co.uk

But I want to pause in silence a little longer. Heaven was silent for about half an hour as the seal was opened. Silent to prepare to receive the prayers of the saints. Passed from the elders to the angels, raised up to God himself as sweet smelling incense. 

Prayers for ‘Thy Kingdom to Come’. Prayers calling out ‘How Long’. Prayers of silence, prayers of the heart. Mother’s intercessions, cries of desolation, shouts of praise, desperate calls for intervention, joyful thanksgivings, lonely prayers, and the crescendos of crowds coming together as one. Liturgy, extempore, contemplative, artistically expressed, maybe even some prophetic dance all gets burnt in that stunning offering in heaven that comes after the silence. The silence suggests a preparation for justice and judgement. How many of our prayers are really cries for a judge to come and get rid of what is bad and make things alright? 

In Jewish tradition there was silence before God spoke the earth into being. 1 Ezra 7:30. Now there is silence before the end comes. The silence completes the opening of the seven seals. The half-hour (or half a time) shows that there is still something to come. It feels incomplete. It is incomplete. 

But before we get to hear what happens in completion, John is shown two other ways at looking at the judgement to come… the trumpets and the bowls. These have parallels with the seals and with each other, and are best understood as being three concurrent angles on the same story – each filling in the gaps left by the other view. 

We still need to meet the beast, Satan, and hear of more destruction, (while being continuously reminded that the Lord God is in control of history however bad it gets),  before we get to see how those prayers of the saints find their fulfillment in Chapters 20-21. 

That’s a good image to take into some silence. Perhaps you want to pray the prayer we taught on the School of Prayer:

In your weakness ask the Holy Spirit to do what Romans 8 promises the Holy Spirit will do. Ask Him to help you in your weakness when you don’t know what to pray. And then pray in confidence in the light of all we have seen in Revelation: 

‘Holy Spirit, please pray in me, with me, for me and through me…’

… then humbly wait and see if you can join Him in the prayer of heaven that is being written just for you today.

Read More in this Series

The Lamb Wins Whole Series Catch Up : Introduction: Chp 1: Hope is Here | Chp 2: First, Love: Ephesus | Chp 3: Fear Not: Smyrna | Chp 4: I Know: Pergamum | Chp 5: Tolerate This: Thyatira | Chp 6: Wake Up: Sardis | Chp 7: Hold On: Philadelphia | Chp 8: Knock, Knock: Laodecia | Chp 9: What Must Soon Take Place | Chp 10: Holy Forever | Chp 11: Most Blessed | Chp 12: One That Was Slain | Chp 13: Come Home | Chp 14: Sun Forbear to Shine | Chp 15: 144000

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  1. Paul, Ian, Revelation 2018, 171. ↩︎