We said last week that these five chapters of John, 13 to 17, in which Jesus addresses his disciples and God (here in 17) are a gift to the church.  They are a gift and I am thankful for the chance we have over these remaining weeks in John’s Gospel to rest in them.  Last week we were invited to let ourselves be loved, let ourselves be washed, let ourselves be forgiven.  We are invited to remain in the love of God, to abide, to rest in it.

Today let us rest in this truth.  Jesus prays for us.  Jesus prayed for us and we know what he prayed.  Jesus prays for us on an ongoing basis, seated at the right hand of the throne.  This is another piece to the answer to the challenge – How do we stay together when Jesus is no longer physically present (and hasn’t been now for over 2,000 years)?  How do we stay in touch with this Risen One?  How can we continue to believe in and live in relation with one we can no longer see or hear?

In the middle of these questions, Jesus prays for us.  Someone who was very good at prayer prays.  John 17 is a gift to us, may we rest in it today and every day.  Let’s come before God in prayer as we begin.

If you know me or are getting to know me, you will know that I am not really one for telling people what to do.  Make of that what you will for good or for ill.  I do understand though, that there are times in which I might give some advice that would be of benefit to people.  This is one of those times, so here it is.  If you are part of a group of people that gets together to pray for one another on a regular basis, keep on doing that.  If you are not part of such a group, I encourage you to become part of one.  If there is a group of people at Blythwood or a church near you which is suitable for your schedule, join us (or them).  If we can help to create such a group which would suit your schedule, please talk to me or one of our church leaders here.

We call praying for one another “intercessory prayer.”  Intercessory is one of those words you don’t really hear outside of church or even without “prayer” being attached to it.  It’s the adjective form of intercede which is more familiar.  To act on another’s behalf.  To literally “go between” from the Latin original.  When we are sharing our burdens and in so doing carrying one another’s burdens and in so doing fulfilling the law of Christ; when we hear each other pray, we are getting to know each other’s hearts.  We are getting to know each other’s centres. 

Jesus is our great Intercessor.  Any talk of prayer on our part is rooted and grounded in him.  In this prayer we get to know Jesus’ heart.  After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said,  This is a good prayer posture.  Looking up.  Hands held out to receive.  The posture in which we pray can help in our encounter with God.  We want prayer to be an encounter with God.  An encounter with the transcendent which is beyond what we can touch, see, hear, smell, taste.  We ask God to give us spiritual eyes to see and spiritual ears to hear.  I was talking to a friend recently about the challenge of seeing beyond what we can physically see – encouraging a sense of the transcendent.  Prayer encourages this.  Looking up.  We generally pray with our head bowed and eyes closed.  We hear of people in the Gospels falling at Jesus knees or falling at his feet.  Kneeling or falling on our faces before God may be entirely appropriate too.   Here Jesus is looking up, and says, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you…” 

The hour is here.  The weekend is here.  Good Friday to Raised to Life Sunday.  Glorify your name is “Let your name be known.”  Let who you are made known, as the ways of God are going to be made known in an outpouring of love and forgiveness on Friday and new life – a whole new beginning on Sunday.  The way back to God will be made.  The way to eternal life has been made.  What do we mean when we say eternal life?  Not simply a belief in the afterlife, though it is a promise for “in life and in death”.  This is how Jesus describes eternal life, or life from above, or life of the ages.  This is life lived as it we have been created to live it.  This is the gift of God in Christ Jesus.  “That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

It's good to make this prayer our own.  Substituting “Jesus” for “I” and “I” or “me” or “we” or “us” when we see they or them.  “This is eternal life Lord, that we may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”  We could go on here, “Jesus glorified you on earth (Jesus made your name known – Jesus made your ways known on earth) by finishing the work that you gave Jesus to do.”

Thank you.  Just.  Thank you.

We want to be people of gratitude.  People with grateful hearts.  Let us start here.  Through the birth and life and death and raising and ascencion of Christ Jesus.  Through the Holy Spirit who has been sent to live in us (who again we will celebrate next week on Pentecost Sunday).  We have been given knowledge of God.  Not just head knowledge or knowing facts or cognitive knowledge but knowledge that goes to the centre of our being – the centre of our will, our volition, our wisdom, our emotions, our thoughts.  We have been given knowledge of God’s name which means knowledge of God’s ways which are mercy and grace and peace and joy and justice and love.

Thank you.

Jesus’ prayer turns to his followers in v6.  “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world.  They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.  Not they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.” (6-8)  Jesus is speaking of the ones that will be sent.  We remember that the man born blind in ch 9 was instructed to go to a pool called “Sent.”  We remember that Jesus will say to his disciples before his departure, “Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 

Jesus holds those he is sending in his heart. Jesus holds those he is sending in his prayer.  “They are in the world,” Jesus tells his Father, “But I am coming to you.”  Jesus prays on their behalf.  The Church will become Christ’s body in the world.  Jesus becomes our advocate above.  The Holy Spirit becomes our advocate here – God with us in a whole new way.  The Church’s role will be to become God’s advocates and witnesses in the world – enlivened and empowered by the Holy Spriit of God and prayed for by Jesus who asks on the disciples’ behalf, “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”   Keep them in your name.  Keep them in your name because they will face persecution and opposition.  Keep us in your name.  Keep us faithful in living and speaking the truth of Jesus as fully God and fully human.  The truth of Jesus as revealer of God who is at the same time beyond our comprehension and as close as our breath.  Keep us in your name that we may be one just as you and Jesus are one Lord.  Where the church is faithfully proclaiming “Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!” in word and in deed with all grace and hope and peace and justice and mercy and love that goes along with that truth, we are being kept in his name.  Somone has said, “Where the Father keeps the Church in this name, and in all that this name means, the Kingdom of God is present, alive, and at work in the world.”

We bless one another with the words “The Lord bless you and keep you.”  We pray “Lord bless us and keep us.”  Keep us in your name.  This is an effective prayer!  How can we say this?  The fact that we are here following Christ.  The name of Jesus, the good news of Jesus, has been preserved and passed on to this day.  We have no intention to stop.  We can say with Peter when Jesus asked were the 12 going to leave him too – “Lord to whom would we go?  You have the words of eternal life.”  We’re not going go stop now.  (“Ain’t No Stopping Us Now” as the song goes).     May this be joy to us.  May this be a joy to us?  At the midway point in his prayer (verse wise at least) Jesus sounds a not of joy.  May being kept in the name be a joy.  “But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.”  There are a lot of tough situations in life.  There is a lot we don’t know.  How are things going to go?  Here is something we know and we are reminded of in Jesus’ prayer.  We have not been left alone.  Jesus speaks of his joy here when he’s speaking of his friends.  It’s wonderful to think that our turning to God, our resting in God’s delivering grace in Christ brings God joy.  Listen to how joy is described in Zephaniah – “The Lord your God is in your midst, a warrior who give victory, he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love, he will exult over you with loud singing.” (Zeph 3:17)  May we rest in that joy that goes beyond circumstances.  It doesn’t mean going around smiling all the time or faking anything.  There is a time to laugh and a time to weep.  A time to rejoice and a time to mourn.  It does mean that we live with the joy of a deep seeded assurance that God has us.  That God keeps us in his name.  That we belong to Jesus.  “I got you” is a popular way of saying “I’m looking out for you.”  I’ve got your back.  God’s got you.  Let us rest in this.

As we turn to the third part of the prayer, in which Jesus prays for us and by extension the whole world.  “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.  As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”  Seven times Jesus prays “that they may be”.  Four of these times Jesus prays that we may be one – “so that they may be one, as we are one.” (11)  “that they may all be one” (21)  “so that they may be one, as we are one” (22) “that they may be completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (23)

Eleven years ago I had the opportunity to go to Beirut Lebanon along with 4 other pastors from around Ontario.  We stayed at the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary and learned a lot about what mission looked like in North Africa and the Middle East.  One afternoon, two of us had the chance to accompany two women from the seminary who were serving refugees from Iraq.  We visited the home of a Iraqi woman who had been a hairdresser back home.  She was also a Christian.  Visiting must have been in the air that day.  While we were there, along came another visitor.  A local Maronite Catholic priest.  I didn’t even know what Maronite Catholic was at the time.  We talked and prayed together with the help of our hosts translating.  Before we left, our sister in Christ from Iraq took out her Bible and said she wanted to read a passage.  It was from this prayer.  “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (22-23)

The unfathomable/eternal/beyond space and time love that flows between God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit of God is foundational to God’s mission to the world.  The same love in which we are caught up as Christ’s followers is to be foundational to our mission of knowing Christ and making Christ known.  I’ve been talking about resting in this prayer.  Let us rest in the promise that Jesus makes as he closes and as we close.  “I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (26)  Jesus has made his name known.  How do we know?  The witness of lives lived in him.  He will make it known.  Thanks be to God for the promise.  Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

Amen