Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter, May 26, 2020

John 17:1-11a

Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you, just as you gave him authority over all people, so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him. Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ. I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began. I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.”

The Lord Jesus utters the majestic words of this prayer at the very end of his discourse at the Last Supper.  He has spoken to his Apostles about their duty as servants, he has told them of his departure and what that means for him and for them, and he has assured them that though they will not see him, he will always remain with them.  Finally, he has taught them about the Holy Spirit who will unify them in his Body, enlighten them as to his teachings, and make them new men so that they might spread the Gospel.  Here, he speaks to his Father, praying for himself and for them.  

For himself, he asks that the Father “glorify” him. “To glorify” means to show that a person is worthy of honor, love, and respect.  The Lord Jesus has glorified the Father in carrying out his will: “I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do.”  The Son will continue to glorify the Father in his obedience in his Passion and Death, and the Father will glorify the Son in the triumph of his Resurrection and Ascension into heaven.  We believers have a part in this glory: “You gave him [the Son] authority over all people, so that your Son may give eternal life to all you gave him.”  

We should consider this.  The Son gives eternal life to all the Father gave him.  That is, the Father, who created us, gave us into the care of his Son for the purpose of our salvation, which gives glory back to the Father.  Each of us, whom God created in his own image and likeness, has been handed to the Son for eternal life in heaven.  To paraphrase Psalm 8: “What am I, that you are mindful of me, or that you visit me? You have made me a little less than the angels, you have crowned me with glory and honor.  You have set me over the works of your hands. You have subjected all things under my feet.”  “All things”, that is, the world, the flesh, and the devil.  The high privilege of glorifying the Father has been granted to us little creatures of clay.

“They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.”  The Son is speaking to the Father here particularly of the Apostles.  He says, “They have kept your word.”  Jesus is testifying that they have remained loyal to him, all except the “son of perdition”.  The loyalty has come at a heavy cost, but “now they know that everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you.”  We see something of the intimacy of the Father with the Son, here.  The very words which the Son gave to his Apostles were given to him by the Father.  These words now belong to the Apostles, the Lord says, and through them, to us.  

The Lord Jesus shows us how we belong to the Father and the Son through his Incarnation when he came among us, his easy accessibility, so that people could jostle against him, his speaking openly in public places, his never turning away a person who sought a cure, through his teaching us how to pray, and finally by dying for us on the Cross.  He says of us to the Father, but for us to hear, “The ones you have given me . . . are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them.” Let us then glory in our belonging to God, and glorify him in our gladness and thanksgiving for this most gracious gift.