John 17:1-26
June 19, 2014
Concordia Catechetical Academy Symposium on the Lord's Prayer

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

    Jesus prays for His Church.  He prays for those given to preach the Father’s Word of truth.  He prays for those who will believe in Him through that Word.  And so He prays for you.  It is only because of this that there is still faith on the earth.  It is only because of Jesus’ ongoing prayer that the Church has survived persecution and false teaching, tyranny and tribulation, incompetence and apathy, and the likes of us who fall all too quickly into worldliness and unbelief

null    Jesus prays for us–not only in the past, but also the present; not only above, but also on earth. As He was with His disciples here on the night when He was betrayed, so the right hand of the Father is extended concretely to wherever two or three are gathered in His name.  Jesus is always the Chief liturgist and presiding minister.  He is the Great High Priest who leads our prayer before the heavenly throne, and who bestows blessing and forgiveness from the Father.  It is His service, for He yet remains the One Mediator between God and men, for He alone is both God and man.  Jesus is God for man as we receive His divine gifts, and He is man for God to bring us and our prayers to the Father.  Christian worship, then, is the worship of Christ–in both senses of the phrase.  

    Jesus prays, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You.”  Jesus is glorified in the hour when He is lifted up on the cross, for there the glory of God’s love toward sinners is made known.  And now Jesus’ prayer finds its fulfillment among us in the preaching of the cross.  This is how the Father is glorified and worshiped rightly, that we believe in His Son whom He sent.  This is eternal life, that we know the true God of mercy manifested in Jesus the crucified One, and cling to Him and hold on to His words from the Father–as Jesus said, “They have kept Your Word.”  And even more importantly He said, “I kept them in Your name.”

    The true and highest worship of God is faith, to receive the gifts of Christ with thanksgiving and prayer, the voice of faith.  The disciples had just received the gifts of Christ’s body and blood, the holy Eucharist.  When we receive this blessed Sacrament, Jesus’ words are fulfilled for us when He said, “(Father), the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me.”  Christ gives Himself into you most literally under the bread and wine for your forgiveness and life.  And the Father is in Christ.  And so you are drawn by the Holy Spirit into the perfect unity of divine love.  The Father loves and accepts you as He loves and accepts His own Son.  

    Jesus has not prayed that we yet be taken out of this world with its sorrows and troubles–the glory hidden under the cross must come before the revealed glory of the resurrection.  But Jesus does pray for your deliverance from the evil one, whom He fought and conquered in Your flesh.  You do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with your weaknesses, but One who was tempted and tested in every way just as you are, yet without sin.  Therefore you are without sin.  For you are in Christ and He in you.  Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.  You have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous.  His fervent desire is for you to be with Him in His glory.  He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for your sins, and not for yours only but also for the whole world.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠