In the next to last verse of the Bible, John prayed, "Come, Lord Jesus." When we think about the great prayers of the Bible, we may think of the Lord's Prayer, or maybe Solomon's prayer of dedication for the Temple. John's prayer probably is not on our list of great prayers of the Bible; but it has a great place in the unfolding story of God's plan for all creation.
Simply put, God's plan is the gospel. The gospel is the story of Jesus. The gospel began before the foundation of the world and will continue after time as we know it has ceased to exist. Each of the Gospels is the story of Jesus, and Paul used "gospel" to describe the whole story of Jesus. The long awaited Messiah lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death, rose from the dead, and ascended to the Father; but the Jesus story is not finished yet. We are living in the time between his first and second comings. When John prayed, "Come, Lord Jesus," he was praying for the next step in the gospel to happen.
So often our prayers are mundane. The typical church prayer meeting is long on requests for the sick and short on global vision. The Lord's prayer is different. The first half of the Lord's prayer is about a God's agenda, God's name, God's kingdom, and God's will. When we follow the model prayer that Jesus gave to us, we say "your kingdom come." Then we say, "your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." When we say those words, what are we ultimately asking? Basically, we are asking for the same thing John was asking for when he said, "Come, Lord Jesus."
These days people are wringing their hands about North Korea. News stories about perverts and children abound. We live in a society that does not value the idea of absolute truth. About five times as many unborn babies have died in the United States than people who died in the Holocaust. Every day it seems like there is another story about human trafficking, or the opioid epidemic, or a horrible accident. This list could go on and on. When we think about the big picture, praying "Come, Lord Jesus" makes perfect sense.
