Friday, November 13 –
We
come to the end of the workweek as we continue our reading in the New Testament
in a year. Our reading continues in
John’s Gospel as we read John 17:1 – 26.
Please read the passage first, and then come back so that we might look
at it again.
The conversation with the disciples that began in the Upper Room is
finished. It was either late Thursday
evening, or early Friday morning in the night, and they probably were still
near the Temple, ready to walk towards the Garden when Jesus wanted to do one
more thing with them – pray! What
follows is often referred to as Jesus’ High Priestly prayer. It is not the prayer of sorrow that he will
soon pray in the Garden of Gethsemane (cf. 18:1-2). This is a prayer of full identity where we
see the intimacy of the Union of Jesus, the Son of God, with the Father. It is really “the Lord’s Prayer” because it
is the longest prayer we have been given by Jesus. It is a prayer for God’s glory to be
revealed, for the disciples to be equipped and for believers to follow –
including us today.
“When
Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said,
“Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you” (17:1).
The
“hour has come”. The hour that was
predestined for the Son before he ever arrived on the earth. He had spoken to them about his leaving,
washed their feet as an example of the love and humility he wanted them to
emulate, and promised the gift of the Spirit – “another helper” – who would
come to lead them in the work they would do after he left. He asks the Father to “glorify” – make his
glory known – that in this hour, the Son might glorify the Father. John has used hour and glory over and over
again to make the point that God was directing the affairs of Jesus’ life and
ministry. The Son had been obedient in
listening to Father and every miracle, every sign, every “I am” statement was
so that we might see the Father at work in the Son.
“since
you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom
you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only
true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth,
having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father,
glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the
world existed” (17:2-5)
Jesus
came to accomplish the work the Father had given him to do. He came to bring eternal life to those who
would come to know God through Jesus.
His work is soon to be finished.
Within an hour or so he will be arrested, put on trial, and by the early
morning condemned to die on a cross. His
death was the reason he came, and his resurrection would triumphantly declare
the Father’s Amen! If we ever wondered
of Jesus’ relationship with the Father, we can hear him declare “glorify me
in your own presence with the glory I had with you before the world existed”
(17:5). As Christians, we know the
promise of Eternal life, but we have yet to see it. Jesus lived eternity with the Father, left it
to enter into space and time with us, and longed to go back to that eternity
with the Father.
“I
have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.
Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.
For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received
them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have
believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for
the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours” (17:6-9).
Now
Jesus shifts the focus from his own longing to the eleven disciples he will
leave behind. He had made known (manifested)
the Father’s name to them and to the world. The Father had given him the
twelve, and one was a betrayer, but the rest had received His word as from the
Father. They believed that the Father
was speaking in and through Jesus and believed “in” Him. They put their trust in Him and now Jesus
focuses His prayer for those “whom you have given me, for they are yours”
(17:9).
“All
mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am
no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy
Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one,
even as we are one” (17:10-11).
Jesus
prays for them because they have received God’s word and since He is leaving,
he prays for their protection “in the world”.
“While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have
given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son
of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (17:12). We have
this promise that God knows those who are His and we are in the Father’s
hands. This is cause for security,
confidence, and joy – “But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak
in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves” (17:13). Still, we are not so foolish to think
that the same world that hated and killed Jesus will now love the believers who
remain.
“I
have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of
the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them
out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not
of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth;
your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them
into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also
may be sanctified in truth” (17:14-19).
The
key to our life in the world is in the word “sanctify”. That which is “sanctified” is holy. It is not holy because of its own innate
nature, but it is holy because of what God does. He chose us out of the world and set us apart
as believers – sanctified ones – and we “sent into the world” even as Jesus was
sent by the Father. The evil one, Satan,
is our enemy, even as he has always been God’s enemy. The means of our sanctification is “truth,
your word is truth”. Jesus gave the
Father’s word to them and he is going to send them the Spirit who will “guide
you into all truth” (16:13). This is
the tension that every Christian experiences.
The world we live in rejects the principle of God’s word as truth. It rejects Jesus as “the way, the truth, the
life”. How then do we live in a world
with divided loyalties? It is the word
of God that directs us in the truth, and the key is to believe it, embrace it,
and live it out. We are not “truth” in
our own natural reasoning. We are “sent
into the world” as God’s ambassadors of His truth, and Jesus stands with us
– “for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in
truth” (17:19). He is on our side, protecting, keeping us, and
working in and through us as we live out His truth.
“I
do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through
their word” (17:20). In these words we read, Jesus is prayed for us
too. The disciples were the Apostles who
were anointed to lead the early church.
After their deaths, a generation of leaders carried their work on. Church History is my favorite subject because
we see a long line of leaders who faithfully received the baton of the Gospel
from each generation that preceded it.
Here we are…the Church twenty-one centuries later, and Christ’s prayer
is still being answered. He prayed for
those who would believe later – for us – and he focused his prayer on three
primary things:
First,
that we might be united in the work of the Father and the Son. “that they may all be one, just as you,
Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world
may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I
have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and
you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that
you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (17:21-23). Unity is not uniformity, nor is it everyone
thinking alike. A marriage is a bonding
of a man and woman in unity, but neither loses their individuality. Instead, they are enriched by the other
spouse. So also, the Church is Christ’s
body with many different parts. There is
only one church, and Jesus is its Head, but there are many parts to His
body. When Martin Luther sought to
reform the Church, he did so with a great desire that the Church could be
sanctified in the truth, but when he was rejected and the truth trampled on, he
stood with the truth of the Gospel over the institution. Truth has to be
anchored in Jesus Christ, there is no church without that. That is why he prayed (17:23), that the world
would see in the church, Jesus.
Secondly,
he prayed for our eternal presence with Him as our “hour” comes to an end – “Father,
I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to
see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation
of the world” (17:24). It is a great
comfort to know that it is Jesus who is praying for eternal life for us. We are not “earning” this promise in His
prayer. We are inheriting the promise of
His prayer. What we will see is the
Father, the glory of God, and the Savior who made that possible for us.
Finally,
he prays for our lives to be filled with the knowledge of the Father’s divine
love – “O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know
you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your
name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have
loved me may be in them, and I in them” (17:25-26). It is a circle that is unbroken. The Father sent his Son because he “loved the
world” (John 3:16), and the Son loved those who put their trust in Him, and now
he is about to leave, but he prays that the flow of God’s love will not stop,
but continue to be the reason why we love and serve God in and through the
Church.
I have
long thought this prayer to be a great summary of the purpose of living out
our lives as followers of Jesus. He
prayed for us and still does. Hebrews reminded us that Jesus is our great High
Priest. He saw in us something that He
chose to love – and die for. He said at
the beginning of his prayer –
“I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to
do” (17:4). My prayer is that I, all
of us, could say the same thing at the end of our life. He prayed this in front of them, and then
they began to walk to the Garden – his hour has come and it’s all soon to be
over. As they walked along, did they
understand it? I doubt it, but we see
backward while they had to see forward.
Peace
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