Fifty Two Weeks / John 17

The Lord’s Prayer

The “Our Father” is the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray. John 17 is the true Lords prayer. This is by far the longest of Jesus’ prayers that we have on record. This is also the prayer He prayed on the night in which he was betrayed. Since the Holy Spirit saw fit to leave the record of this important prayer we can assume there’s some very significant information in here for us.

Because this is only a blog I am going to pull just three nuggets from this goldmine and examine them.

Eternal Life

John 17:3 “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

When I was a child I used to wonder about eternal life. I would sit in the back seat of my parents car on long trips and try to imagine what eternal life might be like. The best I could do was to simply muse the words, “live forever never stop never stop never stop.” As a child that seemed like a pretty good alternative to death. Now that I am an adult and have seen the misery and tragedy the strike so many peoples lives I understand that death sometimes appears to be a friend. I can see that the notion of eternal life being simply an unending continuation of this life may not always be an attractive idea.

So why is eternal life supposed to be such an alluring concept? 

Eternal life does contain the concept of being without him but it is so much more than that. The essence of eternal life is to know God. 

If you have ever been in love with someone who was also in love with you then you know the magnificent joy of life when that person is around. Now, imagine that that person is God. Imagine that that excitement and joy grows richer and sweeter over time instead of diminishing. Imagine that you will never have to be separated, it will never have to stop. Now, you are starting to imagine eternal life.

The Word

John 17:4 “I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.”

A few weeks ago we looked at Chapter one of John’s Gospel. “in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…” it was always explained to me that the Bible is the written Word of God and Jesus is the living Word of God. Of course this is a deep ministry, but at the very least we can assume that what would be true about the written Word would generally also be true about the living Word.

One example of this would be Psalm 119:105. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” This isn’t the only passage that refers to the written word in terms of being light but it is one of the most famous passages to that effect. Therefore we should not find it surprising to hear the living Word say in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

One of my favorite passages about the written word is found in Isaiah 55:11, My word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” I can’t help but think of this passage every time I read Jesus’ prayer and hear him say, “I have finished the work you gave me to do.”

Unity

In four different verses (11& 21-23) Jesus prays for our unity. He mentions unity among the believers more than anything else in this prayer.

I called unity the forgotten Christian imperative. We live in such a divided polarized society that unity is frequently despised much less considered to be a worthy virtue in and of itself. Of course we cannot sacrifice the core doctrines of our faith for the purpose of unity; light and darkness cannot walk together. However, too frequently we elevate doctrinal nuances and even things so trivial as political positions to the place of being the boundary lines which define our unity. These things are of substantially less importance than unity itself.

Jesus had good reason to pray for our unity. He believed that if we walked in true unity the world would know that He had been sent by God and that God loved them. Imagine how different the world would be if everyone knew those two things in their heart of hearts.

Jesus Christ alone is the boundary line to define our unity, the rallying point around which are unity must be built. If we will do this then we will know Him and the world will know Him. And the result will be Eternal Life.