Christ's Great Prayer, Part 3
I do not pray for them alone, but also those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me....Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am....O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them. John 17:20-26, NKJV.
Jesus' prayer has moved from His personal concerns to the ends of the earth. First, He prayed for Himself as He faced the cross. Second, He prayed for His 12 disciples and for God's power to preserve them. Now in the third section He prays for all disciples in all corners of the earth until the end of time.
The final part of the prayer tells us certain things about Jesus. For one, it demonstrates His complete faith and absolute certainty. Here He is with a few stumbling, warring disciples and the cross facing Him, and yet He is praying for those who would believe on His name through their ministry. He didn't view the church as it was, but as it would be in the future. Jesus saw the future through eyes of faith established in confidence in the Father.
A second thing that this division of the prayer shows us about Jesus is that He had confidence in people. Through the eyes of faith He saw a movement growing out of the actions of a small group of individuals who were, to say the least, messed up. That confidence extends beyond those first followers to those who will have lived through all history and even to those of us at the end of time.
And as in the second part of the prayer, this third one has a focus on unity that we as His people might move beyond our self-centered differences to a love and oneness illustrated best by the divine Trinity. As Jesus and the Father and the Spirit are one in aim and purpose, so is Their church to be on the earth. Why is that unity so important? "So that the world may know that thou hast sent me" (verse 23, RSV). Nothing is so disruptive of the church's witness to the world as disunity among those who claim to be following the same Lord. That thought brings us back to John 13:35 and its inspired insight that all will know we are Christians by our love for one another.
Father, enable me to have the mind of Jesus, the eyes of faith that see hope in even apparently hopeless situations and people. And enable me to move beyond myself to that Trinitarian love that is the basis of Your kingdom.
I do not pray for them alone, but also those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me....Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am....O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them. John 17:20-26, NKJV.
Jesus' prayer has moved from His personal concerns to the ends of the earth. First, He prayed for Himself as He faced the cross. Second, He prayed for His 12 disciples and for God's power to preserve them. Now in the third section He prays for all disciples in all corners of the earth until the end of time.
The final part of the prayer tells us certain things about Jesus. For one, it demonstrates His complete faith and absolute certainty. Here He is with a few stumbling, warring disciples and the cross facing Him, and yet He is praying for those who would believe on His name through their ministry. He didn't view the church as it was, but as it would be in the future. Jesus saw the future through eyes of faith established in confidence in the Father.
A second thing that this division of the prayer shows us about Jesus is that He had confidence in people. Through the eyes of faith He saw a movement growing out of the actions of a small group of individuals who were, to say the least, messed up. That confidence extends beyond those first followers to those who will have lived through all history and even to those of us at the end of time.
And as in the second part of the prayer, this third one has a focus on unity that we as His people might move beyond our self-centered differences to a love and oneness illustrated best by the divine Trinity. As Jesus and the Father and the Spirit are one in aim and purpose, so is Their church to be on the earth. Why is that unity so important? "So that the world may know that thou hast sent me" (verse 23, RSV). Nothing is so disruptive of the church's witness to the world as disunity among those who claim to be following the same Lord. That thought brings us back to John 13:35 and its inspired insight that all will know we are Christians by our love for one another.
Father, enable me to have the mind of Jesus, the eyes of faith that see hope in even apparently hopeless situations and people. And enable me to move beyond myself to that Trinitarian love that is the basis of Your kingdom.
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