Grace,
mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
The sermon
text for today was inspired by the Holy Spirit through the apostle St John. And
he was one of the 12 disciples who was present with Jesus at the Last Supper, when
Jesus spoke the words from our gospel reading today, which we read earlier. And
we read:
Father, the
hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you. (John 17:1-11)
Prayer: May
the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O
Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
This Sunday is a particularly special
Sunday. It is a kind of “waiting” Sunday, because it is between two major
church festivals: the Ascension, where we celebrate Jesus going up into heaven
40 days after Easter (which we celebrated on Thursday), and Pentecost, where we
celebrate Jesus pouring out the Holy Spirit on the church 50 days after Easter
(which we hope to celebrate next Sunday). So today lies in the middle. And
Jesus said to his disciples before his ascension: Behold, I am sending the
promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with
power from on high.
All those many years ago, the
disciples were waiting for the Holy Spirit. Now in the creed we say: He
ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God. So, now that Jesus
is seated at the right hand of God, what do you think he is doing? He is
praying: he is constantly praying!
Jesus has not left the church to
leave us to fend for ourselves. He is the centre of the church, and at the very
heart of the church is Jesus constantly praying for the church. Jesus is
constantly sustaining your life through his own prayers.
Today our Gospel reading is part
of a great prayer which Jesus prays on the night when he was betrayed, Maundy
Thursday night, the night before Good Friday, when he dies on the cross.
And it is such a great mystery
when we think of Jesus praying! Every prayer that we pray is simply joining in
with these wonderful prayers of Jesus. Jesus prayers are a great ocean, and our
prayers are just a small drop. We can’t pray one word without Jesus coming
along side of us and letting us share in his prayers. Every word we speak is
covered in his blood and covered with his prayers. And he takes our prayers and
weaves them into his.
We so often have such a wrong
idea of prayer. We think that prayer is all about us trying to twist God’s arm
to give us something. No – it’s not about that at all! Every time our lips are
opened to pray, we do it because Jesus had pushed us to pray, and he wants to
lead us to come and pray with him, and because he wants to give us a particular
gift. Jesus has already decided what gift it is that he wants to give to us, so
he pushes us a little so that our lips will ask our heavenly Father. And then
when we have asked, and when Jesus has given us whatever gift he wants, our joy
is increased!
What gift does Jesus want to give
you today? What does he want to give you this week? What thing would Jesus have
you ask him at this point in your life?
Let’s come to our Gospel reading
today. I have always found this particular chapter of the bible rather hard to
get into, and not immediately easy to understand what’s going on. But at the
same time, wouldn’t you expect that? Sometimes when a person comes to church
the first time, they have no idea what’s going on! So also, wouldn’t we think
that if we were allowed to listen to Jesus pray, we would find what he says
just too holy and too glorious for our simple, sinful human minds to
understand?
Those who are interested in this
chapter of the bible will just get bored. But may God the Holy Spirit come to
all of us to taste a little crumb from God’s table this morning, so that we can
learn something of the deep and profound mystery of prayer, and learn from
Jesus’ own words how to pray.
We read: 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, since you have given him
authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
Jesus is our high priest. And every
high priest has three duties: to teach, to pray, and to offer sacrifices. In
John chapter 14, 15, and 16, we read about where Jesus teaches his disciples
and encourages them in a wonderful sermon. Now in chapter 17 (our reading
today), he prays. And then in chapter 18 and 19, we read about the sacrifice he
made by suffering and dying for sin of the whole world.
So we read: When Jesus had
spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven. Notice, how Jesus
lifted up his eyes to heaven. Isn’t this such a great mystery? Do you lift
your eyes to heaven? Do you have a longing to go there, and to be set free from
the burden of this life? Here we see Jesus taking all the sorrow of the world
upon himself, and he simply looks up, together with everyone in the past,
present, and future, who has ever uttered a sigh and a cry for help to God.
And he starts his prayer so
simply. He says: Father. This is so simple and yet so profound. When
Jesus prays, Father, then God says to him: My dear Son. Whenever your
heart calls to God as Father, then God simply says to you: My dear child, what
do you want?
Jesus says: Father, the hour
has come. The time for my suffering and death has come, and as Jesus says
about this time in the other gospels: My soul is greatly troubled, even to
death. This is an hour of dread, and of pain. What a terrible hour this is
for Jesus that has come! Yet, at the same time, it’s only an hour—it’s only
going to be a small time. What’s one Good Friday compared with an eternity of
joy and happiness and gladness?
And so what does Jesus ask would
happen at this hour? He says to the Father: Glorify your Son that the Son
may glorify you. Jesus asks that everything that is going to happen will be
to the glory of God the Father. And Jesus asks the Father to rest his hand of
blessing on him in everything he is about to do that it may be a glorious
thing. The cross, the suffering, the death of Christ is not his failure at all,
but it is his glory! And his resurrection is his glory! Just think of all the saints
in heaven gathered around Jesus singing: Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to
receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and
blessing! Here is the Lamb of God who was slain on Good Friday, and raised
on Easter Sunday—and it is all to his glory. And Jesus glorifies his Father!
Jesus prays: Glorify your Son
that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all
flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. Jesus has taken
on human flesh, and he has been given authority over all flesh. And Jesus can
see that the whole human race would be completely lost without him, and unless
he did something about it. All the authority to fix this is in his hands. And
so Jesus knows that that Father has given him authority over all flesh. Not
one person who has ever lived on this earth is excluded: each person is given
to Jesus, and Jesus has authority over all flesh. And so Jesus is going to go
and die, and to rise. And Jesus does all of this so that all those who believe
in him will be given eternal life. If they reject him, then there’s no eternal
life, but there’s only eternal death.
So we might say to Jesus: OK,
Jesus, I know that you have been given authority over all flesh, to give
eternal life to all those that God has given to you. Well, Jesus, how do we
receive this eternal life? How do we inherit it? So Jesus says: And this is
eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you
have sent.
Now here’s something strange! It
says here that eternal life consists in knowing God and knowing Jesus. But you
know, there are all kinds of people who know about God and know about Jesus,
but they’re not saved. They might know doctrine the doctrine of the Trinity,
but they don’t actually believe in it. How can knowing God and Jesus be eternal
life?
Well, have a think about fresh
bread. Do you know what fresh bread is? Do you what it tastes like? Do
you know what it smells like? If the answer is “no”, then you don’t know fresh
bread. You can’t look at a picture of it in a cook-book and say that you what
fresh bread is. Meanwhile, there are all these people who are thinking: Hmmm!
Fresh bread… straight out of the oven. The kitchen or the whole house is filled
with the smell. And when you take it out of the oven, and melt some butter on
it, it’s just so tasty!
This is what Jesus is getting at
when he says: This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God,
and Jesus Christ who you have sent. Knowing God means to experience his
living power. This is what it means to know God: to enjoy the sweet delights of
his word, where he just pulls one promise and one comfort after the other out
of the oven, and serve it up to us all warm and fresh. And to know Jesus
Christ? What does it mean to know the fact that one drop of his blood is the
ocean which drowns each and every single one of our sins? What does it mean to
know that one single word of his prayers gives us everything we need for any
given day in our whole life? And the deeper we know our sin, the deeper we know
the power of the blood of Christ. To think he could have paid for the sin of
the world with one pin-prick of blood from his little finger, and yet he chose
to pour out his blood, and to pour his soul as an offering for sin. This is
eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you
have sent.
Maybe, you feel weak in faith,
and long for a deeper knowledge of God and of Jesus. Remember, you are not
saved by your strength, and you are not saved by your strength of faith, but
you are saved by faith. And Jesus is much more powerful than your weak faith –
his power is made perfect in weakness. When you feel weak, then look to
Christ in his weakness, see how weak he was here in prayer, lifting his eyes up
to heaven. Think about when he went to the garden of Gethsemane, sweating
blood, pacing around back and forth—God didn’t abandon him in his time of
weakness, and he won’t abandon you either. God sent his angel to strengthen
Jesus in this time of great darkness, and comforted him. If he can comfort
Jesus who was made weaker than you, can’t he also comfort you?
Now this whole business that Jesus
is doing, of teaching, praying, sacrificing himself is the heart of Jesus’
ministry. He has come for the express purpose of giving eternal life. So Jesus
says: I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work you gave me to
do. It’s not that Jesus simply talks, and prays, but he accomplishes
work, he wants to you to see him at work. He says: Whoever has seen me
has seen the Father. Look at each of my works, and you will see my Father,
you will see the heart of God. Just think about all the work that Jesus
accomplished! What more could he have done for us?
Jesus accomplishes so much, in
such a humble and humiliating way. And he knows that the time is coming for him
to enter into such great suffering. And so he prays for the resurrection, for
his sacrifice to be acceptable to the Father. And so he says: And now,
Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before
the world existed. We can see here that Jesus says in this prayer that he
existed before the world. We see here such a clear word from Jesus’ lips that
he is actually true God together with the Father. Jesus had this wonderful
glory in the presence of his Father. And he asks: And now, Father, glorify
me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world
existed.
Our Gospel reading today is
almost too rich for us. This text takes long, slow meditation on it for us to
really digest it and learn deeply from it. Just to be a fly on the wall why
Jesus in engaged in this most holy task of prayer is an overwhelming privilege
and joy!
Let me read to you the rest our
reading, which we haven’t reflected upon:
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. 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.
I would encourage each of you to
take this chapter of John this week and read it a few times, and take note of
what you notice differently each time you read it. It is a passage that is
difficult, but not because the words are difficult, but because our minds and
our hearts are no numb to spiritual things, and spiritual. I wonder if this
kind of prayer is the sort of thing that St Peter says: the angels long to
look.
To enjoy this passage and to
really soak it in will take time, but time which will be well spent.
So let’s remind ourselves today
of this great and profound mystery of the fact that Jesus is constantly at the
right hand of his Father praying with us. And if it weren’t for his prayers, we
would never have anything. We could think of all the darkness and sadness and
sorrow that we might have experienced either in ourselves or in others
throughout our whole lives so far, and we might think of all those things that
have brought us to despair. Think of what Jesus knows—how he sees so profoundly
deeply into the heart of each person throughout history. We see so much
darkness just from watching the news. Jesus knows so much more than that, and
if there is anyone who ever lived who has a reason to despair, surely it is
Jesus, don’t you think? And yet, there is one thing that Jesus doesn’t do, and
that is despair. Jesus never despairs.
He knows prayer. And he knows it
better than any of us. And all our best prayers and all the experts in prayer
in our midst are a drop in the ocean compared with the magnificent waterfall
that Jesus pours out continually before his Father in heaven. Micah says: You
will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for your
prayers!
Amen.
And the peace of God which passes
all understanding keep our hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus.
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