SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION DAY

4th May 2008

Jesus said – ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you.’

For Jesus, that ‘hour’ in our Gospel reading had now come and with it, the supreme test of his obedience to God, and the Glory that would accompany it. Following that final supper with his friends the author of John’s Gospel, uses the whole of the 17th Chapter, for the ‘Lord’s Prayer.’ Probably, the greatest of all the prayers of the New Testament, but not, to be confused with the ‘Disciples Prayer’ – also more popularly known of course as the ‘Lord’s Prayer’.

This prayer – described by a former Archbishop of York who then went on to become Archbishop of Canterbury, Donald Coggan – as the ‘Longest and most penetrating of all the New Testament prayers.’

John’s Gospel has threaded through out it, this theme of the ‘hour.’ It is at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, when Jesus responded to his mother by saying – ‘My hour has not yet come’ that we have our first reference to it. When the people of Jerusalem tried to arrest Jesus, after he had taught in the Temple, we read that ‘they did not lay hands on him, because his hour had not yet come.’ Then in Chapter 12 of John’s Gospel, there is a change. Following the request to Philip by the Greeks to see Jesus, we hear Jesus saying in response to this request, ‘The hour has come, for the Son of Man to be Glorified.’

And from that moment on, before the festival of the Passover, Jesus himself knew that his ‘hour’ to depart from this world and go to the Father had indeed come.

And it is here in today’s Gospel reading that we have the beginning of that prayer to think upon, as we prepare to celebrate Pentecost, next Sunday.

This turning point in Jesus’ ministry will lead to His Glorification. For it is at this ‘turning’ point that Jesus also talks of the grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying, and so bringing forth much fruit.

But in the same breath as he prepares to surrender his own life, the warning is also given by Jesus that, -

‘Those who love their life will lose it.’ For the Christian way of life and response to Jesus love is to let go of our worldly lives, and become the servants of others in the cause of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Concern for the future – and provision for the years that lie ahead, together with what legacies we might make for others in the future are matters, which consume many peoples’ time today, as the years advance. What then was to be Jesus’ legacy to His disciples? What could he leave them, these disciples who had given up everything to share that same ministry? How could he repay them for their loyalty to him?

For God’s gift to Jesus, was this faithful band of men, and women. And now, as he prepares to return to his Heavenly, Father he seeks assurance for them, and their future. And so it is, here in this prayer that he intercedes for them.

Jesus unlike many of us was not a man of property or material wealth with which he might endow his friends. But two things he had been able to do for them. He had been able to train them and he could pray for them.

For all that Jesus knew of God, he had been able to share with them, and they had received his words and accepted his commission. But he had also given them himself, both as a friend and leader. And through him, the disciples had both been caught and taught.

But they will not be left alone, for in due course they will have someone else to be there, alongside of them as Renos reminded us last Sunday - one, who will be there to assist them, who following Jesus’ Ascension into heaven, will be poured out upon them - the Holy Spirit of God. And in this prayer for his disciples, Jesus prays for three things for them.

• That they would be protected. (v. 11)
• And that they would remain united. (v. 11)
• That they would have joy. ( v. 13)

For those who accept the Christian Faith in this country, the need for ‘protection’, the first of those three petitions, might seem unnecessary, but what of the future generations?

In verse 13 of this chapter, Jesus prayed that the disciples might have ‘his joy made complete in them selves’. Soon they would pass through an agonising period, as Jesus faced death. But they would come through that, and then the ‘joy’ of the resurrection would be theirs. And they would know the truth of his words spoken to them over these past months.

The Jesus’ prayer is also for all of us here today, for it is a prayer that we might also find joy in the Christian Faith. So that as we pass through life and meet the challenges of living in this world, whatever pain or sorrow is experienced by us, Jesus’ prayer for his disciples and for us is that we might know the same joy as Jesus, of knowing God.

And thirdly, there is the prayer that these disciples, these friends, may be – ‘with me where I am.’

At the beginning of John’s 15th Chapter, Jesus says – ‘I am the true vine.’ Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. While we abide in him, while we have union with him, we will continue to draw our strength from him. Apart from him we can do nothing.

What was true for the disciples is equally true for us today also.

As men, women, and young people, commit themselves to the Christian faith, as some will be doing here at St. Andrew’s next Sunday, as some are baptised and confirmed, they will also be called to proclaim the faith of Jesus Christ to others.

So Jesus in this prayer to God, prays not only for the disciples, but also for our ‘protection’, for the ‘joy’ that he has experienced of knowing the Father to be ours also, and that we might remain, ‘united’ with Jesus, even as he and the Father are united as one.

Amen

Revd Peter Vickers (Abbreviated version of previous sermon in 2002)

Posted: 11/05/2008