For Those Who Will Believe

John 17:20-26

The Gospel of Luke records that at a certain point in Jesus’ life, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.’ (Lk 11:1). We know his response. ‘When you pray, say: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done …"’ and so on. The Lord’s prayer. The pattern of praying for Christians ever since. Simply and direct, it goes to the heart of human need: for food, for forgiveness, for protection, for the coming of God’s kingdom. This is the way Jesus said we should come before God and make our requests.

But what about him? How did Jesus pray? The gospel reports that he spent long periods in prayer. But rarely are we told what he prayed about. There is that vivid moment in the garden of Gethsemane when he prayed in anguish, ‘let this cup pass from me,’ and his weary disciples slept through it. But apart from that, not much. Except … for the 17^th chapter of John from which we read a moment ago. John 17 is an extended prayer that Jesus makes to God. This is not Jesus saying how we should pray. It is Jesus at prayer himself. So what goes on here? The first part of the prayer, verses 1-19 (which we didn’t read) is mainly a detailed request that God protect the little band of followers once he, Jesus, has departed from them.

I know that we face a question here. Are these really the words of Jesus? There is a lot of debate about the historical accurate of John’s Gospel. It seems—in comparison to the other gospels—as if John is painting a portrait more than developing a photograph. There is a crafted quality about his story that is unlike the other gospels. So is chapter 17 part of this portraiture? Did Jesus really pray these words?

I can’t go into this scholarly debate here, as I am sure you will be relieved to know! Let me just say this. There is no doubt that John knew the heart of Jesus. His interpretation of Jesus’ life and words has a power unmatched in the New Testament. If we want to be historically cautious and say this is St John’s portrayal of Jesus’ prayer, rather than a recorder’s verbatim report, fair enough. But either way, chapter 17 is a genuine insight into Jesus’ intimate dealings with the God in prayer.

What does Jesus ask God for us? Three things. One, unity: I pray ‘that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.’ (v 21). Jesus asks God that we, his later disciples, may be together, with a unity that is like the unity that pertains between himself and God. And what is that? One of the most powerful pictures the NT gives us is filial belonging. Jesus calls God ‘Father’ and is himself named by God as ‘my beloved Son’. Jesus’ prayer for us is that we might be drawn into the primary relationship that characterises his own belonging to God, in other words, he asks that we might become, in a derivative sense, what he is in a primary sense: sons and daughters of God.

Two, presence: ‘Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me …’ (v24). Jesus prays that we will live in his presence and share his glory. This is not a prayer that we might know more historical facts about Jesus. Though knowing the story is a part of it. And it is not that we might have a correct doctrinal understanding of his person and work. Although a decent Christology is no bad thing for us! His prayer is not that we might know about him, but that we might be with him and have a share in his living glory. And what is that? Glory in scripture, and especially in the Gospel of John, is the manifestation of God’s being and nature in a way that is accessible to human experience. God’s life, and all it entails: truth, light, grace, mercy, justice are given to Jesus, according to this prayer, from ‘the foundation of the earth’. And Jesus Christ is the manifestation of this being and life of God in a way that is accessible to us. That is his glory. And he prays that we have a share in that manifestation of God’s presence.

And three, Jesus prays that we may dwell in love; the love of God. I pray ‘that the love with which you have loved me may be in them.’ (v. 26). This is the most profound of the requests. Jesus asks God that the love with which God loves Christ may be in you and me. The same love which is God’s own, the love which defines the nature of God from the foundation of the earth, the love between the Father and the Son, that love, Jesus asks, may be in us.

The really stunning thing about this prayer is what it says about God. You see when Jesus prays, it is not just the same kind of operation as when you and I pray. We come to God as God’s creatures and say, as creature to our creator, ‘our Father in heaven’. But Jesus, at least in John’s theology, is himself one with God. Jesus is the Word of God that became flesh and dwelt amongst us. God with us, God for us, God beside us. Thus when Jesus prays (if this isn’t too confusing a way of putting it), when Jesus prays, it is a conversation in the heart of God himself. This prayer is God the Word addressing God the Father in the power of God the Holy Spirit. In other words, this prayer is a window into the dynamic life of the God who is trinity, father, son and spirit. And Jesus prays that we, as individuals and as the church, will be drawn into the trinitarian life of God. Nothing less than that.

I know this is getting complicated. A picture is worth a thousand words. So let us look at a picture; the picture on the front of your order of service. This picture can be seen as a profound portrayal of Jesus’ prayer; not now in words, but in colour and form. It is Andrei Rublev’s famous icon of the Trinity. Rublev was a Russian orthodox Christian who lived in the 15^th century. He painted this icon based on the story of the visit of the 3 men to Abraham by the oaks trees of Mamre, which we heard earlier from Genesis 18. The text says that the Lord appeared to Abraham in this visit. And so a long tradition of Christian meditation on the story understands the 3 mysterious visitors to be a manifestation of the God the Trinity to Abraham. Rublev picked up this interpretation in his painting. The three are seated around a table. But they are not just humans, they are angels. Each has golden wings as you can see if you look closely. But they are also not just human and not just angels. The three are also the persons of the trinity. The central figure is Christ. He wears the colours blue and brown. Blue symbolizes heaven and the divine; brown, earth and its soil. He is the Word who became flesh of our flesh and dwelt with us. The figure on the left is the Father, the creator God, robed in gold which symbolises the glory of his being from the foundation of the earth. The figure on the right is the Holy Spirit in the blue of heaven and the green of new creation.

The Father leans toward the Son imparting to him the glory and the love which is God’s being from the beginning. The Son points with a hand on the table to the Holy Spirit, who will carry his resurrected life into all the world. On the table are the cup and bread, communion in the body and blood of the risen Lord. All is bathed in gold and light, the glory of the living God. The interconnection of the 3 persons of the Godhead are almost tangible. Their being together in love and unity is set before us with great sensitivity and power.

But the picture is deliberately, and achingly, incomplete. Notice there is a space at the table, directly at the front, at the very centre of the picture. This space is the focus of Jesus’ prayer in John 17. Jesus prayed in the power of the Spirit to the Father, that we who believe in Christ through the Apostles’ word, ‘may be in us as you Father are in me and I am in you.’ In other words, that we may be here at this table with these three, participating in the communal life which is theirs, the very life of God.

So Jesus prayed. But he didn’t ask it just for us, as if this wondrous destiny is somehow intended only for a few individuals, or even only for the church. Jesus asks all this, ‘that the world may believe that you have sent me.’ The world is the objective of God’s mission of love in Jesus Christ. The world that the Father created. The world that Christ redeemed. The world that the Spirit renews. This space in Rublev’s icon, like the scope of Jesus’ prayer, is small enough for us as individuals to be there; and wide enough for the whole world to enter in.

Dare we believe that what Jesus prayed for us—that we be one in the Spirit, that we live the presence of his risen life, and that the love of God dwell in us—might actually be realized? And because it is, the mission of the Trinitarian God, to draw the world into God’s own life, is also being realized through us?

Even so, let it be, O Lord. Amen.