Jesus prays for his disciples- Jn 17:6-19

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26; Psalm 1; 1 John 5:9-13; John 17:6-19

John can be a little bit tricky to read. You really have to slow down. You have to read John the way you read poetry. There are words that repeat and fold in on each other. It can be a bit confusing if you don’t slow down and really meditate on the words by reading and re-reading. … So, I thought it might be helpful to slow down and walk through this passage. This is what the Puritans used to do when they preached. They would just walk through and explain what is being said, so I thought we might try that today. … You may want to have your Bible in front of you as we do this.

This is an incredible piece of Scripture- we get to overhear Jesus praying to his Father.

Our gospel reading begins with verse 6- 

“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.”

 … To make God’s name known means more than to know the sounds someone is called by. In the ancient world, a name has something of the character of the person. To know God’s name is to know God’s character. It means to know who God really is. Who God is, has been made clear to them through Jesus- A few chapters earlier we read, 

“Philip said to [Jesus], ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me…” (Jn 14:8-11).

 And in the letter to the Colossians we read that 

“[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15).

 The disciples have come to know the “name” of the Father because they knew Jesus. Tertullian, a famous early church father, actually said that “the Son is now the Father’s new name” (On Prayer 3; Against Praxeas 17). That gets a bit confusing when it comes to understanding the Trinity, but I think the point he is trying to make is that knowing Jesus is the way to know the Father. If you want to know the character of God, then look at Jesus.

We also see repeated over and over that these disciples were specifically chosen for this. The disciples are constantly spoken about as belonging to the Father, and having been given to Jesus, and so they belong to Jesus as well. These disciples have kept the word of the Father because they have kept the word of Jesus and have handed that word on down through the ages. This is the Apostolic witness. It is the handing on of the witness of those who were with Jesus. … 

I think we can see ourselves in this as well. We tend to have a strong sense of being individuals who chose freely and so some tend to place more value on the faith of those who choose Christianity from some other background. I know former Satanists who have become Christians. I know a former Muslim Imam who became a Christian. And we tend to value that choice, against friends and social pressures, that broke them away from one worldview to become followers of Christ. … People who grow up in the church and never really waver in their belief can sometimes feel sad that they don’t have a big moment of conversion. But John assures them, God chose you to be His. You are God’s own.

In verse 9 Jesus says that he is praying for his disciples, not for the world. This is not to say that Jesus is against the world in all senses of that word. In John 3:16 we have the famous passage 

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life”.

 Jesus came because of love for the world, but there is a darkness in the world. In the first chapter we read, 

“He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him” (Jn 1:10-11).

 In the Bible, “The World” doesn’t just mean the people, the birds, the trees, the mountains, and the flowers. It means something more like what hippies used to mean when they say, “the System” or “The Man”. It is the oppressive systems of the world that oppress and divide. It is human beings organizing themselves apart from God’s guidance. It is a kind of slavery for most who are in it. … Jesus has come to break those chains, and the disciples he is now praying for are a big part of the way that he is going to do that. So, at this point, he is not praying for the world, but praying for his disciples who will be his body in the world after the Ascension, when he will no longer be physically present in the world. After the Ascension, he enters the dimension of Heaven, where he will no longer be limited by space and time, so he is able to be very present to his disciples through the Holy Spirit, but not physically. In a way, the disciples will be the physical presence of Jesus in the world. Teresa of Avila once famously said, 

“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

Jesus knows that he is leaving his disciples in a hostile world, so he prays for their protection- for our protection. Verse 11 reads, 

“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.”

 And this protection is prayed for the sake of unity, not just for safety. He asks for God’s protection so they can be one- so that they can have unity. That is an interesting priority. The unity we are called to is for a purpose- We read later in this chapter that Jesus prays for the unity of the church 

"so that the world may believe that you have sent me" (17:21) 

and

"so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me" (17:23).

 … How many have doubted the validity of the way of Christ because of the disunity among Christians? How often has the work of the church been hamstrung because of fighting between denominations and internal squabbles over theological details? That isn’t to say those issues aren’t important, but they probably aren’t so important that they should distract from the greater work of the Church in the world.

In verse 12 Jesus prays, 

“While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled.”

 Our reading from Acts describes this as well- Peter addresses the Disciples saying, 

“Friends, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit through David foretold concerning Judas, who became a guide for those who arrested Jesus” (Acts 1:16- see also Ps 41:9; 109:2-13).

 Some find this part about Judas a bit troubling. If it was foretold in Scripture- if it was known beforehand- then Judas didn’t have freewill, did he? How is it right that we should judge him for doing something that was completely out of his control? … Here’s an analogy that has helped me. My parents own a retail business. Now say they started to notice that money was missing from the till. Eventually they put in a hidden security camera to find out what is happening to the money. After a little while they notice money is missing and they check the camera and they see it was Joe who was taking the money. … Now, lets put our science fiction hats on, and say they sent that video back in time to before the money was stolen. They watch the video and they see that Joe is going to steal the money. They know what he is going to do, but it is not really in conflict with his free choice. They just know, in advance, what he is going to freely choose to do. … Anyway, I hope that little thought experiment is helpful to you.

Continuing on to verse 13 Jesus says that he is saying these things so that 

“they may have my joy made complete in themselves”.

 It is interesting how often joy has come up in our readings over the last few weeks as being central to the reason Jesus is doing what he is doing. For example, last week we read John 15:11- 

“I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete”.

 It is lines like these that led C.S. Lewis to describe God as a hedonist in the Screwtape Letters. I quoted him recently, but it is worth repeating the words of the demon Screwtape describing God- 

“He's a hedonist at heart. All those fasts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a façade. Or only like foam on the seashore. Out at sea, out in His sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure. He makes no secret of it... He has a bourgeois mind. He has filled His world full of pleasures.”

 And in the Weight of Glory Lewis writes, 

“… if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased”.

 One of my other favourite theologians, Alexander Schmemann, has said 

“of all accusations against Christians, the most terrible one was uttered by Nietzsche when he said that Christians had no joy”.

 This is the most terrible because 

“… from its very beginning Christianity has been the proclamation of joy… all-embracing joy”.

But this joy comes mixed with the rejection and hate of the world. Just as the world hated and was threatened by Christ, so the world will hate the disciples too. The martyrdom of nearly all of the original Apostles, as well as the martyrdom of Christians throughout the ages, even into our own day, are a testimony to the truth of Jesus’ words. So, he prays for the protection of his disciples from the evil one (v15), and he prays for them (and us) to be sanctified (Lev 11:44; 19:2; 20:7; 1 Pet 1:15-16)- to be set apart- in the truth. And God’s word, God’s Logos (Λόγος), is truth. Remember John 1:1? 

“In the beginning was the Word [Logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”.

 Jesus is the Word (Logos) of God. Jesus is, in a sense, asking for the disciples to be set apart in himself. And that is really the only way to have the joy he is speaking about. …

He doesn’t pray this so that they will exist in a bubble, protected away somewhere until the day they die. No, in verse 18 he prays, 

“As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world”.

 Jesus sends his disciples into that place that hates them, just as he was sent into the world that crucified him. So, yes, we will face friction in the world as we follow Christ.

It is a hard reading to sum up because there is so much there. But it is beautiful to see the heart of Jesus exposed in prayer for us, his disciples, his Body here on earth. He prays for our protection, and desires our joy to be full as we fulfill our mission in the world. AMEN