John 17:20-16 There is one who constantly prays for us

Chapter 17 of John’s Gospel is a prayer; the last prayer of Jesus before his arrest and trial. We know that Jesus prayed a lot – but almost of all of those prayers were off to the side, out of earshot. But this prayer is in the hearing of the disciples and it is a prayer for them.

Have you had someone pray for you? I hope you know that you have! I hope that you can name a number of people who have held you in prayer in your lives. I hope that there are people who know that you have held them in prayer. I also hope you know that who you are, and what you are about, has been shaped by those prayers.

One of the more humbling aspects of being a minister is the knowledge that quite a number of people have held me in prayer over the years. It has meant a lot when people have told me that they pray for me. While I suspect that some of those prayers have been in the vein of ‘God please do something with him because I can’t cope with him!’ – most of the time I have sensed that the prayers of people have been supportive and affirming.

Knowing that I am being prayed for really helps me in the times when I am struggling over something – I don’t feel alone in my work – I feel like I am being held in something quite special and I am very grateful.

When I was a teenager I was close to a man who encouraged me in my faith journey. He was a slightly controversial person – his commitment to God was very powerful – and his sense of God’s leading led him to live quite sacrificially, for many years he only worked part-time in order to dedicate himself to his faith and to serving the little church he was part of, and quite a few people gave money to him so that he could support his family. As time went on I found him too intense and overpowering, and with being away from my home-town for university study, I was grateful to be able to maintain some distance from him. I felt that I was stretching out on my own journey and I didn’t want to be held back. I suspected he was disappointed in me, and I sense that he still is. But for a period of at least 10 years, I knew that he prayed for me every day. He told me that he did, and he was to sort of person who would do what he said he would do. That means that for at least a fifth of my life, this one person prayed for me every day. While I have some differences with him, and where I have ended up may not be to his liking, I hugely value that under-girding in prayer that he offered me, and I do not underestimate how those faithful prayers have helped me in my life. He has offered me an extraordinary gift and I am quite humbled and deeply grateful. I wish I was as dedicated a prayer as he was!

I wonder if you would take a moment to think about some of the people who might have held you in prayer or who you have regularly prayed for. Can you talk about them with someone near you? (And don’t be afraid to declare that you have no idea whether anyone has prayed for you or not! This isn’t a test!!!)

Here are some of the features of the prayer of Jesus (in John 17) that stand out to me:

• v.1: ‘Jesus looked up to heaven and prayed.’ Now I don’t think that heaven is ‘up there,’ but the posture of Jesus’ prayer was what mattered. Open-eyed and looking up, means that what is going on was bigger than him. Prayer isn’t about the prayer – it is about entering into the sphere of God, Jesus’ posture fitted his intent.

• Jesus offers a picture of the relationship between himself and the Father as mutual self-giving. The Father gave the Son and the Son gives back to the Father: ‘All that I have is yours and all that you have is mine.’ [v10]

• Those who Jesus prays for are held within this mutuality in God – the love between the Father and the Son enfolds those who are his followers. [v.11, 13, 17]

• These enfolded followers are drawn into God’s oneness – ‘As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.’ [v21] How often do we fall into the trap of thinking that prayer is what we do – us to God?

Here Jesus reveals what happens in prayer – the Father in him, his being drawn into the Father, and those who he prays for are drawn into the love of the Father and the Son, by means of the Spirit. It is wrong of us to talk of prayer as something we do – it is something God is doing in us already. Prayer is very relational – we are drawn into something already taking place between the Godhead and us whether we know it or not.

• v21 again, “I want all of them to be one with each other.’ Our unity in Christ and therefore our life together is a key part of what helps other people come to believe. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it in his book Life Together: “Christian unity is not an ideal which we must realise (or actualise); it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.” That places quite a call on us and our life together! Being ‘one’ doesn’t mean that there must be uniformity in all our thinking, but that our commitment to one another matters more than our differences. Wouldn’t it be great to see more of that commitment to each other in our denominational life!

• I am interested in the words of v26: “I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” I am curious about what it means when Jesus talks about what he has made known and what he will make known. Clearly the prayer is not finished. Something is still unfolding. The Risen Christ still prays for us.

It is the something still unfolding aspect of Jesus’ prayer that especially interests me. That shifts the prayer for the disciples into a prayer for us.

A few moments ago I asked you to recall who might have prayed for you – did some of you struggle to clearly name anyone? Did any of you name Jesus? The writer of Hebrews describes Jesus as the Great High Priest who mediates for us [Hebrews 4:14] – and Paul paints a picture of the way that the Spirit helps us in our praying: “…the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. [Romans 8:26]

I am curious about what it means that Jesus prays for us. This notion offers an interesting perspective to our lives. It means that when we recall past events in our lives we don’t only look at them from our experience of them, but also in the framework of Jesus at work in us. Thus our difficult memories that are so often dominant in our lives need to include Jesus. What was he praying? What was he doing? Where was he – distant and disinterested? No – he was holding us in love with sighs too deep for words. I wonder if those tough memories that dominate us might be less overriding when we remember that the great healer was praying for us and walking alongside us and bearing us. To what degree has our getting past those difficult times been because of our Lord who holds us and loves us? Isn’t there something profound here? We have been held. While the difficult event wasn’t removed, nevertheless we were not abandoned.

And when we face challenges in life – surely we are invited to approach them with a sense of being held in the loving prayer of the Risen Jesus – with the love of God that is in him also in us: God our refuge and our strength – an ever-present help in times of trouble. [Psalm 46] And God is profoundly with us in our times of bubbling-over joy as well!

There is a song I want to play for you as a closing reflection – it offers us the picture of Jesus on his knees for us, for we are the children of a thousand prayers…

While we fall asleep, forsaking our need, you pray and plead, you toil and bleed

While we fall asleep you never cease to steer us through strife, and pray us toward new life

When we lose our way oblivious and frail, miles from the trail, but you never fail

While we fall asleep, you still remain to steer us through unknown strife, and pray us toward new life.

We're the children of a thousand prayers, the Holy One has called us here

When life grinds us down to a crawl, our Lord kneels and we stand tall.

We stand tall because he kneels for us, we stand at all because he kneels.

Children of a Thousand Prayers by Malcolm Gordon