[Sermon Archive] - [Weekly Devotional Guide]
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This Week's Sermon THE SEVENTH SUNDAY OF EASTER 04 May 2008 "Jesus' Prayer for You"
Soli Deo Gloria!
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This Week's Sermon THE SEVENTH SUNDAY OF EASTER 04 May 2008 "Jesus' Prayer for You"
Soli Deo Gloria!
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Often, upon hearing of someone else's need, we'll say, "I'll pray for you." Sometimes others ask us to pray for them. We always agree to do it, but many times we fail to follow through. We forget to pray for that person. Sometimes we do it, sometimes we don't. Then our consciences bother us because we failed to follow through. Maybe we worry needlessly about all of this because there is One who prays for us who never has trouble knowing what to pray nor how to say it, and that One is our Lord Jesus Christ. And he never forgets to pray for you!
St. John the Evangelist records more of our Lord's words on the night when he was betrayed than all of the other evangelists put together. Chapters 13-18 record in great detail the things that our Lord said to his disciples, and the gem is chapter 17, the Great High Priestly Prayer of our Lord. It isn't a prayer that he has taught us to pray-he gave us the Our Father for that-but it is his prayer for us and for the Church. This prayer brings great comfort to you because it is "Jesus' Prayer for You."
Context is always important. Lift words out of context and one can easily get the wrong idea, go the wrong direction, misunderstand. In the words immediately before our reading Jesus had been speaking to the disciples about his departure from them and the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, which we considered last week. At the end of his talking with them and reassuring them, Jesus 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, ESV)And then Jesus prayed for his disciples. He prayed for you. He prayed for all Christians of every age. And his prayer was heard and is heard because of who he is.
But just what did Jesus pray for you? He first prayed for himself that he would glorify the Father is what he was about to do, that is, suffer and die upon the cross, but it is a strange glory. It was not the glory of the world, but the glory of God's love in redeeming sinners. He was going to experience humiliation and degradation in his Passion. Before his crucifixion not even the Jews knew him, but after his crucifixion the whole world knew him. Here it is that we worship this dead Savior upon a cross. Here it is that this sacred image is carried about and revered by Christians everywhere in the world. It is through this seeming defeat that life is restored to the fallen. Through Christ alone is life because he has remedied the cause of death and is risen from the dead. Earlier that evening Jesus presented himself just so when he said:
"I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6, ESV)This past week on 01 May, the nationally syndicated columnist Rebecca Hagelin reminded her readers that 01 May is a very important day. No, she didn't remind her readers that it was The Ascension of Our Lord because I don't think she has any liturgical sensibilities, but because the first Thursday in May has been designated annually as the National Day of Prayer, and as the website says, "a day set aside to encourage all of us to speak with God" [Townhall.com, 01 May 2008]. Everything seems to be the work of man. It seems to center in getting people to wake up God to our situation. The Honorary Chairman for this year's event, a "noted theologian" I have never heard of, suggested a prayer in which it was addressed to "Holy Father" but without a single reference to Jesus. It concluded "in God's holy name," whatever that is. I suppose it was generic so as to not give offense to anyone not confessing the Holy Trinity, but this prayer, no matter how many times it was prayed last Thursday, was not heard because our Lord Jesus was nowhere to be found in it. And Jesus' words echo in our ears, "No one comes to the Father except through me." How much better to know that Jesus prays for you than using such prayers to get God's attention!
Through his death Jesus has the power to give life because his death was an atoning death. No amount of blood shed by sacrificial animals could actually take away sin; they merely pointed to the one sacrifice that only God himself could make. And that sacrifice Jesus made when he gave himself into death for sinners. For this very purpose the Father had sent his only-begotten Son into the world, and now Jesus speaks as though the work has been completed. Indeed, his ministry to his disciples, his instructing and training them, has come to an end. All that remains for Jesus to accomplish is his suffering and death. And so Jesus prays for his disciples of all ages.
Jesus prays for you because you have been baptized into his Name. Being baptized in the name of Jesus is the same as being baptized "In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" because the three Persons of the Trinity are one God, just as Jesus says at the very end of our reading today,
"Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one." (John 17:11, ESV)
Did you ever fully realize what Jesus' coming in human flesh means to you, a human being? Perhaps the Athanasian Creed is too subtle for our modern ears when it says
32 Although he is God and man, he is not two Christs but one Christ:When we ask you to kneel or bow when we speak the words "and was made man" in the Nicene Creed, we are expressing this wonderful truth that your humanity has been elevated when our Lord became flesh in the Virgin Mary. Such honor given to us requires us to acknowledge the One who honors our humanity so.
33 one, that is to say, not by changing the Godhead into flesh but by taking on the humanity into God . . .1
Jesus has manifested the Father's name to you. The Father, who gave all things to his Son, now gives his Name to you. As we just said, when you were baptized you received the Name of the Holy Trinity. You were marked by Christ's own cross on your forehead and on your heart to show that you belong to Christ. In your baptism God gave you everything that you could have through Christ. You gave him your sin and death and you got his life and resurrection. You received forgiveness for all your sin.
But you are still in the world while Jesus has ascended to the right hand of his Father, sitting in heavenly glory, awaiting his return in heavenly splendor on the last day. Jesus is not absent from you. He has not left you as an orphan without a heavenly Father. No, he has sent his Holy Spirit to be with you and in you. And even more, Jesus himself prays for you! He has put the Father's words on you and in you. You have come to know the truth in Jesus Christ, that he was sent by his Father to earn your salvation. You have been baptized and you confess his name.
That you are kept in the Father's Name is why Jesus prays for you.
"I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours." (John 17:9, ESV)Consider that when you doubt whether God cares for you and brings only what is best for you that Jesus reminds you that you belong to God. "God's Own Child, I Gladly Say It" [LSB 594] is what you sang in the second distribution hymn last Sunday. Then know that Jesus will not let his work go in vain. He prays for you that you are kept in unity with him and with the Father.
Remember the trouble that is in the world, the trouble you have with the devil and your own sinful flesh. You cannot keep yourself in unity with God by your own efforts, so Jesus prays for you. You and I often fail, but that is what is so wonderful about Jesus praying for us. But what exactly does he pray? He prays that you will be sustained in your faith in him. This he does by sending the Holy Spirit to bring to your remembrance all that Christ has done for you by his life, suffering, and death. This the Holy Spirit does by bringing you forgiveness of your sins through the Sacraments. Every time you are absolved by the pastor who speaks in the name and place of Christ, he brings Christ to you. Every time you receive the Lord's true body and blood in the Sacrament of the Altar he is keeping you in union with Christ.
"Keep them in your name," your Lord Jesus prays for you. And his prayer is eternally effective because he does not go back on his word. The Father in heaven always hears "Jesus' Prayer for You." He can never turn a deaf ear to Jesus. Through Jesus God remains ever merciful to you. Jesus begs the Father to guard you in his Name. And this happens through the ministry of God the Holy Spirit, all that Third Article of the Creed stuff, the "calling, enlightening, gathering, and sanctifying, and keeping in the one true faith."
It's good that we ask others to pray for us and it's good that we pray for others in need, and those prayers are certainly imperfect and in need of repair by God the Holy Spirit, but remember that there is One who prays for you whose prayer has been heard and always will be heard. He prays perfectly in tune with the Father's will for you. He never makes a mistake. He prays for you because you belong to his heavenly Father. He has made it so. What a comfort to know that Jesus prays for you, now and always!
1Theodore G. Tappert, The Book of Concord : The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 20 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 2000, c1959).