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 prayed the words from our gospel reading today, which we read earlier. And
we read:
And now,
Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had with you before
the world existed.
(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.
In our Sunday’s Gospel reading,
we read a part from what if often called Jesus’ High-priestly prayer. Just
before Jesus is about to go and die for the sin of the world, just before he is
about to offer himself as the great sacrifice for the sin of the world, he
prays this wonderful prayer in the hearing of his disciples. And this is the
only place in the whole bible, where we hear Jesus praying intimately with his
Father at great length. Sometimes, we read about where Jesus prayed a sentence
or two, but here we have a whole chapter purely devoted to a single prayer of
Jesus.
And it is a great privilege to
come and listen to Jesus as he prays this prayer. If you read the gospel of
Luke, Jesus’ prayers are mentioned quite often. Even when Jesus is baptised,
Luke is the only evangelist to mention the fact that Jesus was praying at this
time.
One of the things that I notice
about this high-priestly prayer from John 17 is that Jesus speaks in a way that
we don’t normally speak. It’s very difficult to understand and take in if the
whole thing is read in one sitting. And I think that it to be expected. I would
expect that Jesus’ prayers are most of the time so holy and pure, that it’s
almost too much for us to take in.
At the same time, the words that
Jesus speaks are not hard to understand. Jesus prays in such simplicity, much
simpler than we pray. We often think we have to make up big long complicated
prayers, so that we end up patting ourselves on the back when we’ve prayed, or
else we think that none of our prayers would be any good anyway, so we just
don’t pray in the first place.
Jesus today teaches us something
completely new. He says to us: I know that you’re hopeless at prayer. I know
that you’ve really got no idea. I know that those who think they know
everything about prayer know absolutely nothing. But now, I am going to teach
you about prayer. I am going to send you my Holy Spirit to give you the words,
to help you. And I am going to give you my name, like a password, so that
whenever you come before the Father to pray, you can use my name and join in
with me in my prayers and I will join in with you.
So here we come to God with all
our second-rate prayers, all our fumblings and half-sentences, and embarrassment
and stumbling, and Jesus knows all of it. And he says: I am going to cover your
prayers with my blood, so that when God the Father hears all your dodgy
prayers, he will hear them as completely perfect prayers because of me. Just as
Jesus covers all our sin, so that when God the Father looks on us he sees only
the purity of Jesus, so also Jesus covers up all our prayers, so that when God
the Father listens to us he hears only the prayers of Jesus.
In our reading today, we read
where Jesus says: 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. 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 presence with the glory that I had with you
before the world existed.
I’d like to stop and reflect on
these last words today[1]:
Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had with you
before the world existed. This is one of the most wonderful passages in the
whole New Testament which speaks of the eternal divinity of our Lord Jesus
Christ. It also it speaks about the glory and majesty of his human nature. Just
think—if Jesus had a glory with God before the world existed, then he must be
almighty God. This is what Thomas confesses, when he sees the wounds of Jesus
for himself and says to him: My Lord and my God. Jesus had this
wonderful glory with God before the world existed. And so, in the letter to the
Hebrews, the writer calls him the radiance of the glory of God and the exact
imprint of his nature. He calls Jesus the radiance of the glory of God—this
is just like the radiance that goes out from the sun, that bright light, and
yet that light is still united to the sun. So also, Jesus is called the radiance
of the glory of God. The radiance goes out from God and yet Jesus is still
united to God and is true God together with the Father. Also, Hebrews calls him
the exact imprint of his nature. He is God’s image, the very image of
his nature, and also at the same time he is God. So if Jesus already has all of
these things, why does Jesus pray this prayer, glorify me with the glory
which I had with you before the world existed? Well, Jesus is about the
suffer and die. He has taken on a human body, and now this human body which
belongs to Jesus is going to be glorified with that same glory which he had
before the world existed. Jesus’ flesh, his human body, his humanity is going
to be glorified with divine brightness and radiance and glory when he ascends
into heaven. It’s not some kind of ghost that gives life to the world, but
Jesus’ flesh gives life the world. Think about it: The blood of Jesus
cleanses us from all sin. If Jesus weren’t a true man, he wouldn’t have any
blood. If he weren’t exalted and glorified with the glory which he had before
the world existed, then he wouldn’t be able to cleanse us. And so Jesus has real
human blood, and yet as true God is able to come and transcend space and time
and scrub us clean with this same blood.
You might like to think of the
time when Jesus was transfigured. You can see there when his body shone
brighter than the sun. Now, because Jesus has ascended into heaven, His eternal
divinity shines perfectly in his holy body, as his eternal temple, and God’s
glory fills this temple from top to bottom. This is the same body that we are
going to come and eat in a few minutes, and Jesus’ cleansing blood is the same
blood we are going to come and drink.
This brightness and glory and
radiance is hidden from us though. We can only believe it through the word.
Jesus conceals this glory in his human body, and hides it from us, because it
would be too much for us. But he tells us about it so that we would believe in
it. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.
This is such a wonderful comfort
for us, as we think about the fact that our bodies too are going to be
glorified just like the glorified body of our Lord Jesus Christ. For Jesus, he
is glorified with the glory which he had with his Father before the world
existed. We will probably not be glorified in exactly the same holy, special
way that Jesus is glorified with, but it will still be a glorification.
St Paul says: Just as we have
borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of
heaven… For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable,
and we shall be changed. For this perishable will put on the imperishable, and
this mortal body must put on immortality.
And this is what we have come to
share even today when we hear the simple word of God and receive the sacrament
today, the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. We come to share in that
glory, the glory which Jesus had before the world existed.
Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, we ask that
you would come and pray with us, and we thank you for your continual prayers
for us, which we catch a glimpse of in the high priestly prayer in John 17.
Teach us to pray, Lord, and send your Holy Spirit to us, to guide us and lead
us in your school of prayer. Amen.
ReplyDeleteThis relies heavily on a sermon on this text by Johann Arndt.