Seventh Sunday of Easter: May 12, 2024
Jesus Prays
The Rev. Nat Johnson
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
1 John 5:9-13
John 17:6-19
Psalm 1
In the context of our church calendar, we stand at yet another time of preparation.
Churches across the West celebrated the Feast of the Ascension last Thursday. Ascension Day is 40 days post Easter, and ten days prior to Pentecost. This is a liminal space that is characterized by absence. Once again, the disciples find themselves in uncharted water. And so they returned to the upper room – but this time, it was not for fear or hiding. Instead, Luke tells us, they devoted themselves to prayer as they awaited the promised gift of the Spirit.
In the Acts of the Apostles, the ascension is the foundation of all that comes after it. Whereas in Luke’s gospel, the Ascension signals the completion of Christ’s ministry, in Acts, Luke imagines it as the seed of God’s reign that would, with the power of the Holy Spirit and the fertile soil of souls tilled in prayer, blossom into the proclamation of the gospel to the nations. The rest of the Acts of the Apostles will trace the movement of this Spirit through the people of the Way as they are empowered to carry on the mission of God in the world.
Jesus’ ascension is the hinge of Luke’s two-volume narrative. It provides a transition between Jesus’ earthly presence and ministry, and the work of the apostles as they preach the good news. More than that, it is the hinge that provides continuity between the mission of God embodied in Jesus Christ and the ministry for which the Spirit will come upon the disciples and empower them to follow in Jesus’ footsteps. Jesus’ story, begun in the gospel, does not conclude with his ascension. It is continued in the lives of those who were promised the empowerment of the Spirit and sent to tell the world about Jesus.
But Pentecost is still a week away. And our liturgical “location” invites us to embrace, once again, the liminal space between now and not yet, between promise and fulfilment, between hope and transformation. In our Gospel reading for today, Jesus was also preparing his disciples for the experience of liminal space and time, which would be caused by his excruciating absence. That time would be fraught with confusion and fear, betrayal and abandonment. Jesus knows that his absence will make it harder for the disciples to live as one, to be in communion with one another in loving service and mutuality, and to carry on in the ministry that he invites them take up.
It might be helpful, once again, to situate our gospel reading in the larger narrative arc of John’s Gospel. Jesus sits with his friends around a table sharing a meal. He has just washed their feet, setting before them an example of love that he commands them to follow. Jesus explains that he will be leaving them and then offers them encouragement, assuring them that his departure has a purpose, that he leaves in order to prepare a place for them. He knows that his absence will be difficult, that the road ahead will lead to weariness and fear. He promises them that they will not be alone in this difficulty, but that they will receive another Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, who will care for them and sustain them in all that will face. Through the Spirit, they will be enabled to abide in him and be nourished with all they will need to bear lasting fruit.
Jesus does not sugar-coat what the disciples will be up against. He tells them that they will experience rejection, that the good news they proclaim and the vision of new creation they will embody will inevitably put them at odds with the powers and principalities of the world.
The disciples are co-sharers of Jesus’ mission, but they will also share in the rejection he experienced. He explains that he tells them all of this not to discourage them but to shore up their faith so that they will not fall away. Yes, the journey will be difficult but in it, they will find true joy, his joy.
After Jesus had spoken these words of encouragement and assurance, he looked up to heaven and prayed. He acknowledges that his hour has finally come, that he has completed that for which he was sent: he has made God known to his followers, he has made visible God’s power and presence, and made known, in word and deed, God’s vision for the world.i He prays that God will protect them from all that stands in opposition to God and God’s vision for the world. He prays that God will protect their unity as they are sent into a world hell-bent of fracturing it. He prays that the joy he has known in his relationship with God might take root and be perfected also in them. He prays that God would sanctify them, would set them apart for ministry in the world, empowering them to bear witness to the truth they have been given.
Our Gospel reading stops seven verses shy of the end of chapter 17. Jesus goes on to say, “I ask not only on behalf of these” – the disciples who sit beside him – “but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one…” The prayer that Jesus prayed over his disciples 2,000 years ago was not just for them. Jesus’ prayer extends also to each of us, sitting here in this place on this day. In this liminal moment, in this place and space between the Ascension and Pentecost, Jesus’ words of encouragement and prayer of protection are spoken over each of us. In Christ, God communicates to each of us God’s desire to “reveal our unity, to guard our faith, and to preserve us in peace.”ii
Jesus’ prayer for protection is not just to keep us safe from harm. There is a greater purpose to the protection he asks God to give us and it is found in his prayer that we – not just those who sat at that table so long ago – that we would be one, that we would be one as Jesus and his Father are one, that in that oneness, we would find ourselves also in union with God. As we look across the world today and observe the disunity that floods our social structures and relationships, our political and religious institutions, it can be difficult to wrap our minds around the oneness for which Jesus prays. What hope have we of transformation, of being so united with one another that we become one body? The division that seems so prevalent in our society exposes the reality that unity is beyond human capacity and makes us keenly aware of Jesus’ absence.
But I wonder if this isn’t part of the Word of Grace that John offers us this morning.
Perhaps Jesus’ prayer is as instructional as it is intercessory. The basis for oneness, for unity, is not founded on human capability to impose conformity, nor is it an erasure of difference. Unity is not produced by effort but through mutual indwelling, through the Spirit of God drawing us into union with god in Christ, and in so doing, drawing each of us into communion with one another.
On the one hand, I find it a relief to know that the source of our unity is Jesus Christ, rather than our own efforts to establish peace and harmony between all the peoples of the world. That weight does not rest on my shoulders, on your shoulders, or even on our shoulders! On the other hand, God calls us to cooperate and participate in the work of liberation and redemption, of restoration and reconciliation.
My “oneness” with Jesus means that I cannot ignore the things in this world that disrupt, degrade, and destroy life. My “oneness” with every human being – past, present, and future – demands that I stand in solidarity with those whose dignity and worth are constantly destroyed, whose bodies bear the weight of discrimination and violence. If God is in me and I am in God, I must stand as a tangible sign of God’s divine NO to all that is death-dealing in our world. And, if God is in me and I am in God, then I must also stand as a tangible sign of God’s divine YES to all that is life-giving.
In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., reminds us that “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” Our unity, our oneness, is already a reality. We don’t need to build it, we simply need to embody it.
In this time of preparation, as we await the gift of the Spirit on Pentecost, let us follow Christ’s lead and turn to God in prayer. Let us lament the ways in which Jesus’ absence is felt and experienced. Let us ask for God’s protection as we follow Christ’s command to love as we have been loved. And, let us anticipate with renewed hope and joy all that the Spirit is doing in our midst. Today, on this last Sunday of Easter, let us pray for a fresh outpouring of God’s Spirit in our world, in our nation, in our cities, in our diocese, in our parish, and in our lives! Amen.
i Gail O’Day and Susan Hylen, John (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 162.
ii Eucharistic Prayer D, Book of Common Prayer, 375.