Sermon May 24, 2020

John 17: 1-11      May 24, 2020      Sermon                Rev. Peter Hofstra

                When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, at the tomb site, Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.”  It is not a prayer that Jesus had to pray for himself.  He is God and Human.  He does not need to pray out loud to communicate.  But he prays, as he says, for the sake of the crowd standing there.  He prays so they will believe that the power of God has returned and is coming through Jesus as the Messiah sent by God.

                Which is central to the mission of Jesus, because the people of the Promised Land have not seen God’s power in a very long time.  They are now ruled by the Romans who took over for the Greeks who took over for the Persians who took over for the Babylonians in a long history of conquest upon conquest, the only consistent piece being, God’s people were not free.  And when being conquered by an outside power is the mode throughout the Old Testament by which God punished the people so they would turn back to their Lord, it looks like they have been punished for a REALLY long time.

                I would suggest to you that our passage today is a prayer that is to teach the disciples who are listening to Jesus, in the same way as that prayer at the tomb site of Lazarus was for the gathered people.  There is a history of this.  The disciples came out and asked Jesus how they should pray, and we have shared the Lord’s Prayer consistently down from that moment.  But that was not Jesus’ only moment, or mode, of instruction.  But it kind of like writing a high school essay.  The teacher who assigns it is not simply looking for the proper content, but is also trying to instruct the student in the proper form. 

                Jesus does NOT need to pray out loud.  When he does, there is another reason than simply talking to the Father.  It is for the benefit of those who are hearing it, and for us, as those who are reading it so many years later.

                The climax of the prayer comes at the end.  Jesus is asking for God to be there for his disciples.  Verse 9 and verse 11 brought together: “I am asking on their behalf; And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

                So when Jesus begins the passage by basically demanding that the Father glorify the Son, it is not a petulant, childish demand.  It is Jesus laying out for the disciples that the work is done, the hour has come, Jesus has accomplished the mission, and the result is the glory of the Son, for, in turn, the glory of the Father.  What is happening is that the disciples are seeing that God is back at work among God’s people for the accomplishment of salvation itself.

                What is the glory of getting this work done?  It reverses the fall of humanity.  Remember back in Genesis, Adam and Eve were booted from the Garden because the Tree of Life grew there, a tree that, if they ate of it, would provide eternal life.  But they had sinned, turned against God, been tricked by the Serpent, and so they were tossed out.  From dust they came, to dust they returned.  The work of Jesus reverses that. 

                What does Jesus say about eternal life?  It is in this promise that we will know the one True God.  That we will know Jesus sent by God.  The entire passage lays out the relationship of Jesus to God and back, the waterfall of faith that John loves so much, always going from God to humanity and back and again.  The piece that Jesus is hammering home is that God is the power in Jesus, that God is there for the disciples, that God is the author of salvation, and this is SO important because Jesus is returning to the Father and they will be left to carry on the work of God with the Spirit dwelling within, but also they themselves being there for Jesus, witnesses of the faith and messengers of the gospel.

                The glory that comes to the Son is in the accomplishment of the work of salvation.  As Jesus points out in verse 10, this glory has already begun in the people, in the disciples who belong to both Jesus and God the Father.  It is wonderful power to have.

                It can be a little confusing to read this passage, knowing that this prayer takes place before Jesus dies on the cross, but it ends with Jesus assuming that the Ascension has already happened, verse 11, Now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world…”  It helps to consider that Jesus is looking at this from a divine perspective.  Time what part of the creation.  It does NOT bind God.  My best understanding is that God is above the creation and can see the whole carpet of time and history unfolded before the Almighty.  So ‘the hour’, which Jesus has used before to describe the time of his death and resurrection through his ascension, is an event, start to finish, even if the disciples are still standing in the middle of it. 

                But the point of the prayer is not trying to explain a divine take on temporal mechanics.  It is about the reminder, over and over again, that the power of God is there for the disciples.  They are not of the world, they are chosen by God, they are God’s and they are Jesus’…they…we are the same.  Because this prayer is not simply spoken out loud for the benefit of the disciples who happen to be listening.  It is written down for the sake of those who are reading it now. 

                So consider verses 7 and 8, Now 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.  “They” is us.  The challenge is for us to know that everything given to Jesus is from the Father.  The words from the Father to the Son, those are given to us.  We have received those words (they are written in our bibles) and we know the truth that Jesus came from God.  And we believe that God sent Jesus. 

                For every person who accepts Jesus as Lord and Savior, for every person who accepts the free gift of eternal salvation, the one True God is known more, and the Son is glorified for the work that made all this possible. 

                This is the foundation on which we are headed into Pentecost next Sunday.  Knowing that God backs the work done in Jesus.  Knowing that, in the language of John, the Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in us and back again.  This is to banish all doubts as to what we can accomplish.  Nothing less than sin itself has been reversed.

                Jesus prayed all this out, spelled it out in His conversation with God so that we can be witness to it.  There is something more…powerful that way.  Father and Son talking about the salvation of creation.  It is not a moment of lecture, it is more than that.  Maybe it is the eye-opening moment of an overheard conversation that Jesus and God really believe God is in control, it is NOT just something they preach at us.  If God is for us, who can be against us?

                There is no greater power in all creation than the creator.  There is nothing we cannot accomplish in our Creator.  That promise was being laid down for the disciples because they were going to be living it before too long. 

                I invite you to take a moment to be blown away by this realization.  Pick a problem, any problem, and God’s power is more than sufficient.  And we ARE God’s.  God picked up, gave us to Jesus, we have the word and the promise.  And when we carry out God’s word, through the salvation Jesus won for us at the cost of His own life, we are glorifying Jesus.  This in turn glorifies God.  Which is why we were created in the first place.  Everything is restored to how it was meant to be. 

                The world is beginning to reopen.  All the states are making moves in that direction.  We are watching and praying that it is not too soon.  But God has been there with us through the whole thing.  And God will continue to be with us as we move forward.  But Jesus has been teaching us, by word, by deed, even by prayer.

                No matter what happens, remember what Jesus prayed.  He prayed in the full confidence that God is in control, that everything He did, up to dying on the cross, was in the power of God’s plan.  He prayed to God, asking God’s power be upon his disciples who would carry on the work after his ascension, plainly believing that this is a done deal.  God does NOT abandon God’s own.

                We are God’s own.  We are not abandoned.  We are made God’s children.  We are never alone.  We are in the company of the faithful.  By our faith and our work, we glorify God.  In the end, we share that glory as God’s own children.  I invite you to repeat after me, “Jesus be glorified.” 

Amen.