On Line Bible Study - For the Week July 1 - 7, 2013

Lesson 565
John 17:1-26

This is our last "Pre-Passion" lesson, concluding the portion of John's Gospel that is specific to John and not found in Mark, Matthew and Luke.  John 17 is sometimes referred to as Jesus' "High Priestly Prayer".  Father Raymond Brown calls it one of the "most majestic moments in the Fourth Gospel, the climax of the Last Discourse where Jesus turns to his Father in prayer."  It is different in the prayer a priest would offer in that Jesus IS the sacrifice, constantly interceding for us. (Romans 8:  ³⁴ Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.)  Jesus assumes the role of "heavenly intercessor".

Consider the connection between this familiar phrase: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name and John 17:1  Father ... glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.  Wherever it is that Jesus is headed, it is to a place of glory.  "Glory" is dramatically redefined in the dying and rising of Jesus.

That Jesus' prayer is not bound by time or space becomes evident when we read:  John 17:²⁰ “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message ...

I confess to a certain experience of chills up my spine to think of a vision so expansive, so inclusive, so universal in its scope that it washes over all of creation like a gentle tide of grace.  Is his prayer for believers only - ²¹ that all of them may be one, Father, just as you 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.  For believers only?  Yes, and no!  For believers at first, but for the purpose of a global affirmation emanating from the expression within the Christian Community of unity.  This is not to be misconstrued as "conformity".  

John 17 moves back and forth between the vision of unity and the reality of resistance, even hatred of the truth of the message Jesus shares.  John 17:  ¹⁴ I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.  There is a struggle to see which vision is going to win - the world's tendency toward injustice, greed, violence; or Christ's vision of unity - the shared life lived with forgiveness at the center and acceptance of each other as our modus operandi.

Consider the final line from this prayer:  John 17:  ²⁶ I have made you (the Father) known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

What is the intensity in Jesus' prayer at this point?  What does he long for?  He longs not only for his own unity with his Father.  He yearns to be in all of us, loving us, and loving his Father through us.  On one hand, it is a vision that makes no sense.  Who is "Jesus" anyway?  Do we believe he has the authority to express such a claim?  Whatever our assessment of him, Jesus was willing not only to speak the prayer; he was willing to put his life on the line in the hope that God would not only hear it, but that God would answer it.

Following that prayer, we turn to a new chapter ... one that begins with what must have seemed like a long walk across the Kidron Valley.  With our next lesson, we head into the garden.