Year C 2025

John 17:20-26

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Jesus’ Challenging Prayer

Our Easter journey to Pentecost has been preparing us for the coming of the Holy Spirit, even while the Holy Spirit already lives and works in us. This preparing work has meant to open us to even more of the gospel’s significance for our lives and for the lives of those around us. In the power of the Holy Spirit, we are asked to challenge the ways of the world so the world will know God’s ways, so that people everywhere will have the right to “enter the city by the gates” of saving faith. We already know this is not an easy task because it is not easy to be a disciple of Jesus. It was hard enough for those twelve who followed him around for a couple of years-those who could touch him, pray with him, argue with him and just be in awe of him, and when you put over 2,000 years between them and us, it gets even harder to be a disciple in today’s world.

Jesus knew how hard it would be after he left them-after his death and later after his ascending back to God. Therefore he prays for his disciples then and for us now and for those to come. Today, we hear the conclusion of his high-priestly prayer that started back in chapter 14 of John’s gospel. These are the final words of Jesus to his followers before his crucifixion. On Thursday evening after he had washed his disciples feet during the Passover meal and as the soldiers are in route, plotting their ambush in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prays this most fervent prayer for his disciples to comfort them, to promise them the Holy Spirit, to command them to love, to remind them to stay connected to the vine-him, and to warn them about persecution.

Jesus begs God to unite the disciples and to keep them connected with the kind of intimacy, trust, and blessing that united him and God. Such a connection is not a gentle bond, but a fierce bond, a kind of unity that cannot be broken by betrayal, debate, doubt, or despair. This prayer becomes Jesus’ most fervent dream for the church. After praying for himself and for his disciples, he looks into the future and prays for those who will believe through their word and actions. Jesus desires the same closeness with those who will yet believe as he has had with those who already believed. The unity and love that the disciples shared in the presence of Jesus, will be the same unity and love that future disciples will experience.

The unity of believers, Jesus predicts upon his being in them and the Father in him. This intimacy of being in one another is a gift from God to the Son and from the Son to us via the Holy Spirit. This indwelling of the Trinity is what creates the oneness for which Jesus prays and hence the challenge. If this unity of believers is to continue, the church needs to move from conversion faith to missional faith. We believe we receive the benefits of God’s grace in order to be a blessing. The church is intended to be the presence of Christ in the world. The purpose of God’s indwelling is to share God’s love and wisdom with his disciples so that they carry out the experience of that love, a power strong enough to change the world.

The apostles take up this mantle to bring God’s unity and love to the world around them from Jesus with instructions at the ascension and through the power of the Holy Spirit poured out at Pentecost. We see how this mantle is carried out in the two stories today in Acts. You remember, last week we heard the story of Paul responding to the Macedonian call by traveling to Europe. Today, we hear the continuation of the story of the disciples work at Philipi where we see the carrying out of Jesus’ high-priestly prayer in marketplaces with possessed slaves and in the heart of a prison with the dutiful jailer. In the healing of a slave girl and the salvation of a jailer, we witness how God brings about healing, wholeness, and unity in their lives, witnessing what it means to move toward becoming completely one.

What Paul would learn is that no matter where he went in the Jewish world or the Gentile world, there would be those who welcomed the gospel with open heart and those who rebuffed the gospel with clenched fist. Paul accepted the suffering he experienced for the sake of the gospel. He didn’t seek it out but when it came which was often, he was prepared to embrace it as a witness to the truth. The glimpse of the glory of the Lord he received on the Damascus road was sufficient to carry him and the others through. These stories demonstrate the power of the Spirit of God in the life of the young church, a theme that dominates the entire book of Acts. The key to the Spirit’s saving energy is found in the response of Paul and Silas to the jailer’s urgent question, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”

With the risen Christ in one’s heart and filling one’s vision, there are no obstacles so problematic so as to discourage and stop one’s witness to the truth. We hear Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega, say, “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.” How reassuring to hear these closing words from the book of Revelation that Jesus is the beginning of all and the end of all. Any who thirst for righteousness, justice, forgiveness, or relationship with God are invited to drink freely from the water of life. This water of salvation we have been freely given through our baptism. We have been baptized into the vision of God’s marvelous works through Jesus Christ on earth and in heaven. And we have been given God’s grace: “the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.”

These last words from Jesus in scripture give us the keys to the kingdom because God loves us. Just as Jesus has made the Father’s name known to his disciples, they will make his name and deeds known to others. This mutual love and intimate knowledge of God has to be passed down to all those who hear the words of Jesus and believe because we are all included in this prayer of Jesus, in unity with God through the Holy Spirit. It is this Holy Spirit that continues to challenge the ways of the world for our health and for the health of our neighbor and the wholeness of communities. What else can we say for this awesome love but thank you God for your saving love and the opportunity to make that love known so the world may believe that you have sent us, and so that everyone may enter and drink from the water of life.