John 17:1-11 (NRSV)

Jesus Prays for His Disciples

¹After 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, ²since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. ⁴I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. ⁵So 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. ⁷Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; ⁸for 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. ⁹I 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. ¹⁰All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. ¹¹And 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.

I am indebted to the works by McPolin, Barclay and Morris for this reflection.

This is a lovely passage where we encounter our Lord at his most vulnerable and caring. It is the most prolonged of our Lord’s prayers as recorded in the Gospels. (It is not his longest prayer because we know that he prayed all night before he chose his 12 Disciples).

In addition to being a sensitive and caring prayer, it is also a theological synthesis, which reflects on the content and direction of the whole Gospel.

Here Jesus discloses the nerve-centre of his life ‘... a communion with his Father and which finds expression in the repeated name ‘Father’’ in verses 1 and 3 – but also 11, 24 and 25).

The prayer for ‘glorification’ is a petition that the disciples may know the Father and the Son in a ‘... ongoing, loving and life-giving communion with them.’ (verse 3) In this communion through faith and love, the Father – God – is known in and through Jesus, especially when Jesus had passed through his hour of death and Resurrection to his Father’s glory.

McPolin writes: Jesus, the man for others, prays for his disciples and the main part of the prayer is ‘... and intercession with his Father for the present ...’ his disciples there and then. He continues:

Firstly, the disciples belong to the Father, and everything that belongs to the Father belongs to Jesus too. The disciples are the Father’s gift for they were the Father’s (verse 6) and now they belong to Jesus as well – therefore they are precious to Jesus.

Secondly, they are precious for personal reasons, for they share in the love of Jesus, for they acknowledge by faith, who Jesus is.

Thirdly, because Jesus is leaving them behind, Jesus is concerned about them and how they will cope when he goes, so he is moved to pray for them.

Verse 9 seems to exclude the world from his prayer, but this is not a general principle because later, he prays for the world, that those without faith may come to believe in him (verses 21 and 23).

This is a prayer for intimate friends – it is as if Jesus is saying: “I, your son, am praying for these men who are faithful to you.” And the prayer is for a special gift – the gift of intimacy of communion with himself and his Father and Jesus expresses this petition in different ways – in verse 11 he says “...so that they may be one, as we are one ...” a hallmark of John’s understanding of the relationship we all have access to if we choose to live in union with God, by faith.

We now move on to some thoughts on knowing. These days, we automatically think of knowing in terms of intellectual knowledge and this, in my mind, is perfectly valid. To know what God is like makes a massive difference in a person’s life. Missionaries report of the liberation that has come to communities when people come to understand that there is only one God, especially when they also understand that this one God is also not harsh and angry, but the perfection of love.

And we know these things about God because Jesus revealed them to us. He also revealed that when we enter a life of love, we share something of the life of God himself – for this is eternal life – to  know God and Jesus whom he sent.

But in the Old Testament, knowing is also a reference to sexual intimacy. The knowledge between husband and wife is the most intimate there can be for the two become one flesh. So, knowing is more than intellectual knowledge, it is also a deep and intimate personal relationship. Without Jesus, this relationship would be impossible. As Barclay explains, it was Jesus that taught that ‘... God is not remote and unapproachable, but the Father whose name and nature is love.’ To know God is to know what God is like and to be on the most intimate terms of friendship with him, and none of these are possible without Jesus Christ.

I thought I might reflect a little more on the notion of eternal life as, like the Ascension, it is a much misunderstood concept that leads many to reject our faith. I now enlist the help of Leon Morris, that great Australian evangelical divine, to aid our thoughts.

As I have mentioned before, one of the interesting things of this passage is the way Jesus defines eternal life. Eternal life is to know the Father and Jesus Christ. (It is also interesting how Jesus refers to himself as the ‘Christ’).

There are some people, who, when we are with them, we are lifted up; there are some whose quality of life is such that, when we know them ‘... we are lifted into an understanding of life that we would not have reached if left to ourselves.’

What for me is the greatest joy is the fact that all this – eternal life – is not just a future hope – because the Holy Spirit enables us to experience what will be then, now. Knowledge of God is linked to knowledge of Jesus Christ and so we know God as he truly is only through Jesus Christ.

Jesus prayed for his disciples, those whom God had given him as special companions on his earthly journey. Jesus revealed the name of God to them – the name that he himself bore – the Christ. Jesus taught them in word and deed, not in a rigid dictated sense, but in the essence of their being – in a life lived in its totality. It is in relationship that words take on what they are meant to mean – taken out of the relationship and they become hollow and easily distorted. Jesus never wrote anything down, because he must have know the dangers that this would have caused. Jesus lived in the world and has shown us how to do the same. The secret is to be one with God and each other ‘... so that they may be one, as we are one.’

And we know these things about God because Jesus revealed them to us. He also revealed that when we enter a life of love, we share something of the life of God himself – for this is eternal life – to  know God and Jesus whom he sent.

hat they may be one, as we are one.’