Acts 1:6-14 | Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35 | 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11| John 17:1-11
John 17:1-11
1 After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. 5 So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed. 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. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 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.
Introduction
It was undoubtedly a hot day in the wilderness, the deserts of that barren land called the Sinai Peninsula. Some of God’s people, the Israelites, had once again turned against Moses, their leader. Korah and his family had led a rebellion against Moses and God—for the sake of protecting the righteous, pure worship of himself—judged Korah and his family, putting to death 250 of them by opening the earth and swallowing them. The story picks up from there in Numbers 16, and verse 41:
41 On the next day, the whole congregation of the Israelites rebelled against Moses and against Aaron, saying, ‘You have killed the people of the Lord.’ 42 And when the congregation had assembled against them, Moses and Aaron turned towards the tent of meeting; the cloud had covered it and the glory of the Lord appeared. 43 Then Moses and Aaron came to the front of the tent of meeting, 44 and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 45 ‘Get away from this congregation, so that I may consume them in a moment.’ And they fell on their faces. 46 Moses said to Aaron, ‘Take your censer, put fire on it from the altar and lay incense on it, and carry it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them. For wrath has gone out from the Lord; the plague has begun.’ 47 So Aaron took it as Moses had ordered, and ran into the middle of the assembly, where the plague had already begun among the people. He put on the incense, and made atonement for the people. 48 He stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stopped.
Aaron, the high priest, interceded. It was a vivid moment in what became a lengthy historical tradition of high priests interceding for God’s people. Exodus 28, for example, paints an incredible picture of how this tradition plays out. Here, God instructs Moses and Aaron on how the high priest should be adorned: he should make a breastplate “in the style of the ephod; of gold, of blue and purple and crimson yarns,” set with stones of carneliac, chrysolite, emerald, turquoise, sapphire, moonstone, jacinth, agate, amethyst, beryl, onyx, and jasper, set in gold. If you were counting, there were twelve stones because, in verse 21: “There shall be twelve stones with names corresponding to the names of the sons of Israel; they shall be like signets, each engraved with its name, for the twelve tribes.” The high priest walks into the holy of holies once per year to make sacrifices and offer prayers on behalf of the twelve tribes he literally has inscribed on his chest. But it is not always such a glorious picture. Fast-forwarding to the vision given to the prophet Ezekiel, chapter 22: God, after lamenting the failure of the priests and the prophets, turns to Ezekiel and says in verse 30: “And I sought for anyone among them who would repair the wall and stand in the breach before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one.” And from that moment, it became clear that there was no high priest who could adequately intercede, who could adequately bridge that gap of righteousness between God and his sinful people, who could set things right in the relationship between God and man. And yet, there would come a high priest.
Our passage this morning is the Gospel reading. These 11 verses are the beginning of what, from the 5th century writings of Cyril of Alexandria forward, it is known as the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus Christ, in which he reflects on the events about take place in the final days of the Passion week, and in which he intercedes for all those who would come to faith and gain eternal life in his name.
In John chapters 13-16, Jesus presides over a lengthy conversation which began with the Last Supper and ends with this prayer we’ve heard this morning. The conversation is known as the Upper Room Discourse, and in it Jesus describes the coming persecution, comforts his disciples, reminds them that he alone is the way and the truth and the life, and promises them the aid of the Holy Spirit. Having finished his teaching, Jesus then prays. It is not a simple prayer, but a complex prayer throughout the chapter, dividing into three parts: 1) verses 1-5 where Jesus prays concerning his own glory, 2) verses 6-19 where Jesus prays for his disciples, and 3) verses 20-26 where Jesus prays for those who will come to the Father through the ministry of his disciples. As our reading this morning went through verse 11, we’ll only look at the first two.
1. Glorifying Jesus
I’ve called my first point this: Glorifying Jesus. Having both warned and comforted his disciples, Jesus pauses for a moment, does not bow his head, but turns his eyes to heaven—the normal way of praying in the ancient world—and prays:
1 Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. 5 So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.[1]
Notice the repetition of the word glory—both the verb and the noun. Jesus prays concerning his own glorification here. Glory. One of the central themes of all of John’s Gospel, this notion of glory also points us back to Exodus. There we learn of God’s glory—his might and his power, his unapproachable beauty and magnificence, his weighty honour and reputation to the world that demands a high standard of holiness. The great threat to his glory is idolatry. And the right response to his glory is worship.
But for Jesus in John’s Gospel, there is another dimension. The nature of the Son’s glory is found in the work that God gave him to do (verse 4). What is that work? He gives eternal life to all who have been given to him by the Father (verse 2). And what is this eternal life? To know God, to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he sent (verse 3). Let’s pause on that for just a moment. This is a powerful statement. A simple statement, but immensely and intensely powerful. Jesus had glory in the presence of God the Father before creation (verse 5, not surprising given the beginning of the Gospel, that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God). Nevertheless, God sent Jesus, the Son, into the world and gave him a people, so that he might be glorified in bringing those people to know God the Father and his glory in eternal life.
And what does this glorification look like for Jesus, the Son? What does it mean that he should be glorified in finishing this work given to him? There is a clue in the phrasing the opening phrasing. Our passage began: “After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come.” If you have studied John’s Gospel, you might remember that there are these constant, almost incidental references to Jesus’s hour. Back all the way to the first miracle, the wedding at Cana in chapter 2, the water into wine, there Jesus states: “My hour has not yet come.” In that moment, Jesus expresses a reluctance to do the miraculous until the time is right. Then throughout the Gospel, Jesus refers to the ‘coming hour’ and the fact that his “hour had not yet come.” This continues until we get to chapter 12. We’ve arrived at the betrayal, the night of the Last Supper. Now, Jesus speaks differently. In 12:23: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” The hour is this: the betrayal, the trial, the gruesome torment, the painful death, and the triumphant resurrection of Jesus Christ. It encompasses the events of that night and the next three days. When Jesus says that his hour has come, it has come to that most foundational moment of our faith, that centre point of all human history: the death and resurrection. And Jesus describes it all as his hour to be glorified.
You see, the death and resurrection are fundamentally an act of majesty and magnificence, of sacrifice and splendour, that reveals the glory of Christ Jesus and the Father who sent him. And this is his intercession. Like Aaron before Moses and God’s people, Jesus will intercede not only in prayer, but in the cross. Now, perhaps you are new to Christianity and this is the first time you’ve heard that. Or perhaps you’ve been in the church for a great while and the lustre of God’s glory has dulled a bit. Be heartened dear brothers and sisters. Christ died for us that we may see the glory of God, have eternal life, and know the Father, the one true God. If you have any questions about this, I urge you to see me or any of the clergy after the service. But mostly, friends, may it renew in us a sense of awe and cause us to worship, to sing of God’s great glory in this hour of salvation.
2. Knowing God
You might remember that this is a 2-part sermon. So, we must press on with the second point: Knowing God. The phrase that Jesus picks up from the first five verses is this: “this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God.” In verses 6-11, Jesus begins to intercede on behalf of his followers using that very notion:
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. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 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.[2]
The word Jesus picks up on is know. It’s twice there in the first few sentences. What does it mean to know God? It’s a term of great intimacy, of deep relationship. The Old Testament background to this concept is one of sexual knowledge. [And this is where we take a short break and introduce the mother of all transitions: don’t forget Theology on Tap this Thursday, on Sex and Gender…] And back to the sermon. Knowing God. Remember John 1:10: “He was in the world…yet the world did not know him.” Or John 8:28: “Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me.’” And just a few verses later: “…and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” To know God is to know that Jesus came from God. It is to believe that Christ came, and died, and rose again, at the direction of the Father. It is to have faith. Three Jesus describes how his people have been given to him by the Father, they are his. And they know everything from Jesus is from God. And what is that everything? The word from God given through Jesus Christ. The words given to the disciples, received in truth. To know God is to know Jesus, to believe the Word of God given through Jesus. And so, how do we know if we are among those given by God to Jesus? Note the results: 1) we should believe that God sent Jesus to die for us, 2) we should know and keep the Word of God given through Jesus, and 3) right there at the end, we should be unified in our faith in Jesus. Protection is what Jesus prays for, that we might not divide but remain unified in our intimate knowledge of God through Christ our Lord.
Conclusion
So, brothers and sisters, let us be those who know God, who humble ourselves in awe of his glory, who trust in and keep his Word of truth, and who remain unified in our worship. This is what our High Priest, Jesus Christ, prays for his followers.
King David, after he was made king, once again defeated the Philistines, and set out to bring the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem and have it placed in the tent. There he made sacrifices and offered burnt-offerings, and appointed Asaph as chief priest to minister before the ark. And then David instructed Asaph and the priests to sing:
Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
bring an offering, and come before him.
Worship the Lord in holy splendour;
tremble before him, all the earth.
The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved.
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice,
and let them say among the nations, ‘The Lord is king!’[3]
Let me pray: Heavenly Father, we thank you for the intercession of your Son, that through his sacrifice, we can know you. We are grateful for the life given us that is in his name, and remain in awe of the glory that is due yours. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] John 17:1-5.
[2] John 17:6-10.
[3] 1 Chron 16:28-31.