Sermon - Easter 7 - “One With Jesus” - John 17:20-26 - 5/20/07
May 21st, 2007Click play to listen to the audio version of this sermon.
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Once again, the setting for the Gospel reading today is the Upper Room on the night when Jesus was betrayed. This is now the 3rd Sunday in a row that we’ve returned to this Upper Room. This may seem like a strange place to keep coming back to during the season of Easter. After all, isn’t the Upper Room all about darkness and dirty feet and last suppers and betrayal and final words? And isn’t Easter all about light and life and tulips and daffodils and God’s wonderful surprise? I thought that once we got to though dark days of Lent and into this joyous Eastertide, we’d finally have put all that yucky stuff about death and dying behind us?
But no, we keep coming back to the Upper Room during Easter, especially during Easter. Because it is only because of Easter that all of that stuff that took place in the Upper Room makes sense. As Jesus was talking to His disciples He said to them, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” (John 16:12). When Jesus tells them things like, “It is good that I go away from you…” and “a little while and you will not see me and again in a little while you will see me…” and “You will weep and lament but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy…” there is no way that they can understand what He is trying to tell them. Easter must happen before the things that He has said and done in the Upper Room make any sense to them.
Easter solves the mystery. What was strange and confusing became clear on Easter. Easter validates the truthfulness of everything that Jesus said. It happened just as He said it would. It WAS good that He went away for a little while. For in going away those three days to the cross and the tomb, He atoned for all of our sins and reconciled the Father to us by His precious blood. Yes, the disciples WERE filled with inconsolable weeping and lamentation as they huddled together behind their locked doors. And yes, the disciples’ deep sorrow WAS transformed into the greatest joy that men and women may know, because – Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! It happened just as He said it would.
So, coming back to the upper room during this season of Easter is like having Jesus Himself take our hand and put our finger into His holy hands and our hands in His pierced side and hearing Him say to us again and again, “stop doubting and believe.” And after another week of doubting and disbelieving, returning again and again to the Upper Room is like coming to our senses once again and with repentant joy saying, “my Lord and my God.”
II. Jesus Prayers for Us So this morning, we return again to the Upper Room. The meal is over. Jesus has concluded His last words to His disciples, finally summarizing everything He had had just said, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33).
But before heading out to the garden of Gethsemane for His eternally scheduled appointment with Judas and the temple soldiers and Caiaphas, Pontius Pilate and the cross, Jesus prays. John 17 begins, “when Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said. ‘Father, the hour has come…”
In what we call Jesus’ great high priestly prayer, Jesus for Himself – “Father, glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you…” He prays for His disciples, the 12 minus 1 who are with Him in the Upper Room –“Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.”
And then Jesus prays for another very special group of people who are not in the Upper Room. “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word…” which brings us to our gospel text for this morning. Who are these for whom Jesus is praying in this part of His high priestly prayer?
The answer is, you. Jesus is praying for you. And you are the answer to Jesus’ prayer. You believe in Jesus through their word, the apostle’s word. The eleven who were in that Upper Room plus Matthias whom, we have just heard, was added to take the place of Judas. These 12 began telling others what Jesus had told to them. They told others what they had seen Jesus do and what they had seen done to Jesus. They wrote it down to be sure to keep the story straight and so the story would continue to be passed along long after they were dead and gone. Today, we call it the New Testament. You believe in Jesus through their word.
At first there were only a few, no more than fit comfortably in an upper room. But then on the day of Pentecost, 3000 were added through their word. Then, the Roman Emperor. Nero began to persecute the believers in Jerusalem and the disciples were scattered like bees when the hive is knocked down. Their word was carried from one continent to another and from one century to another and one day, their word came to you. And you believe through their word. And all because Jesus prayed for you in the upper room.
You are living proof that Jesus’ prayer was answered. And the neat thing is, Jesus continues to pray for you and His prayer continues to be answered. What Jesus prayed in the upper room on the night He was betrayed, He continues to pray at the right hand of God, the Father almighty. And right here this morning before our very eyes, we have witnessed His prayer answered again. Maya is the answer to Jesus’ prayer. Through the apostle’s word, Jason and Heidi did what the Word tells parents to do. “Let the little children come to me.” That’s sounds like a command, and it is. But it’s also Jesus’ prayer. And today, His prayer was answered. And His prayer will continue to be answered until the apostle’s word reaches everyone whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life and Jesus comes again to take us into His upper, upper room.
I suppose we could really just stop right here and just let all of that sink in a bit more. I mean, the very idea that Jesus, the Son of God, the One who took all of my sins upon Himself to the cross and suffered my guilt and endured my shame and bore my punishment and died my death – the very idea that this Jesus prays for me would be enough, in and of itself, to fill our empty hearts. And indeed it is enough.
In those times of great loneliness and depression, in our terrible pain, both physical and emotional, in our deep frustrations and disappointments in life, we know that Jesus is praying for us. Luther calls this knowledge of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ the “fluffy featherbed of the soul.”
III. Prayer for Unity We could stop right here and have plenty of comfort to take home with us for one week, but, we won’t because Jesus doesn’t. When Jesus prays, He prays out loud, in the presence of His disciples, because He wants them to know, not only THAT He prays for them, but also, WHAT He is praying for.
I suppose it would be nice to know that when Jesus prays for you, He prays for your job security or your prosperity or even your happiness or your good health. But He doesn’t. Listen to what He prays for. “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us…”
Now, before we go to far along with this, let me just say that we usually try to make this all about unity with one another. We hear Jesus pray that we would all be one, and we think what He’s asking for is that we all work together to put aside our differences and find a common ground where we can all stand together. But that’s not what Jesus is praying for here. After all, when everyone lived together as one in a place called Babel, God didn’t much like it and purposely shattered the unity with one another.
What Jesus is praying for here is that we would all be one with Him. He is the common ground where we individuals are united as one.
Speaking to the Father, Jesus prays that we may be “in us.” This is the same “US” as in the beginning when God said, “Let US make man in our image…” (Gen.1:26). Jesus is praying that we would be united in the oneness of the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit with the same personal union to Him, that each of the three persons of the Trinity has with each other. God is three distinct persons yet just one God. The distinctions between the persons remains yet there is perfect unity in the Godhead. The great Old Testament confession of faith is this, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” (Deut. 6:4). Jesus prays “they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one…”
Now all of this may be a good warm-up for Trinity Sunday coming up in two weeks, but frankly, this strains the limits of our little brains to comprehend. But let’s just understand this much. What Jesus prays for you is that you would be united to Him in such a close and intimate unity that you would be one with Christ. And that He would be one with you.
Here is also the basis for our oneness with one another. Each of us a unique individual as God created us to be. Yet each united as one to each other as we are all united as one to God. Just compare this solid basis for unity with one another to the flimsy and fragile basis for unity that is based on what we can all agree upon.
We must ask ourselves one question to better understand why Jesus prays for such a thing as oneness with Him for us? Thankfully, He prays out loud and if we listen we may hear the reason for His prayer. He prays to the Father pleading, “that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” “God is love.” The love of God is in Christ Jesus. He is the vine. And when we are united to Him, then we are the branches and all of His love flows into us and we receive all of the priceless gifts of His love – the forgiveness of all of our sins, the peace of God which passes all human understanding, the certainty of everlasting life.
I hope that you see that this oneness with Him that Jesus prays for is not something that we can make happen. We can barely comprehend it let alone do it. This is something that happens to you. And it happens to you in Holy Baptism. Your baptism was the answer to Jesus’ prayer for you. This is why Jesus commands His disciples as He does. “Go therefore and baptize all nations…” Baptism is the way that His prayer is answered in you.
In your baptism you were made one with Jesus, so perfectly united to Jesus, that when He died on the cross for all of your sins, you died to sin. Through your baptism, you have been made so perfectly one with Jesus, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so you too live a new life.
May God grant that Jesus’ prayer would be answered in us all.
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