Grace and peace to you from God, our Creator and Sustainer, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit that abides in each of us.

Our lesson this morning is a portion of the prayer that Jesus prayed the night before he was crucified.  Actually, all of Chapter 17 is known as “Jesus’ high priestly prayer,” and our lesson is the end of that prayer.  We first read about this night on Maundy Thursday when we learned how Jesus gathered his disciples, he washed their feet, he ate with them, he gave them a new commandment to love one another as he had loved them, and then he spent considerable time teaching them about what was about to happen to him in his crucifixion, death, resurrection, and his ascension.  As the prayer ends, their evening is coming to a close, and momentarily Jesus and his disciples will head to the “garden” where Jesus will be arrested.  As the evening ends, Jesus prays for his followers and the world.  This is a prayer by a man who knew he was about to die; yet, it was not a “death-bed” prayer.  Earlier in this prayer Jesus acknowledged that he had finished the work that his Father had given him.  Jesus’ assignment was to give eternal life to everyone the Father had given to him.  What is eternal life?  In this prayer, Jesus said, “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).  What great news!  So often we talk about eternal life as something that we do not yet have but something we hope to obtain in the next life, but in this prayer Jesus says we already have it because we know the only true God and Jesus Christ that He sent to us.  How do we know them?  As we learned last week, we know them because, first and foremost, we have come to know God’s Word, and secondly because of those saints/followers that have come before us who have witnessed to Christ and his word.  Notice that this is not about living a perfect or sinless life.  In both last week’s text and the text today Jesus proclaims that knowing God’s Word is the most important thing we can do.  However, this doesn’t mean that how we live our lives is not important.  In fact, just the opposite is true.  If we are going to help the world, that is, those who do not know God in Christ, then how we live and witness to this great news is critical, and when we know God’s Word we will live differently.

In the portion of the prayer that I read this morning, Jesus prayed that his followers might become like him and be one with the Father.  The night before his crucifixion, Jesus prayed for us!  He prayed that we might be cared for and loved as the Father had cared for and loved Him.  Isn’t that incredible, a man who was about to die the most cruel form of death known to humankind prayed for God to protect us, sanctify us, and make us one with Him?  In this incredible prayer, we learn of the gifts that Jesus received from the Father, and now Jesus is giving them to us; eternal life, God’s Word, and God’s Glory. 

We have already talked about eternal life and God’s word, but what is this glory that Jesus is talking about?  According to John, in Jesus, God is glorified by the works that Jesus does, and those works are the works of serving God’s creation.  Do you remember what Jesus did just shortly before he prayed this prayer?  He washed the feet of his followers, a task that only a slave should do.  In doing this, Jesus glorified God, and now Jesus says, Father, my followers will now do the same, they will serve with love.  In his prayer for us, Jesus prays that we will serve the world as he has done.  Have you ever thought about the fact that Jesus prays for us?  Jesus desires that someday we, too, may be able to say, Father, I have done the work you sent me to do.

Have you ever had someone pray out loud for you?  If you have, I bet if felt a little weird or humbling.  We Lutherans just aren’t comfortable with prayer, especially when we are asked to pray in front of others; yet, in our text today, Jesus prays out loud for those around him.  I wonder how those followers felt as Jesus praised for them, thanked God for them, and asked God to not only protect them but to make them one with him.  How does that make you feel? 

For me it is not only humbling, but somewhat scary, as well, because of what this means for our lives.  You see, what we learn when we come to know God’s Word is that all creation belongs to God.  You and I belong to God.  The things we have, our families, our careers, our gifts, our talents, our wealth, everything first and foremost belongs to God.  God has given us these many blessings so that, like Jesus, we might give them away for the glory of God.  Just as God gave gifts to Jesus, Jesus, in turn, gave them to us.  Now Jesus prays that we will be like him and be one with God, the Father, which means we are to give our very lives away for the sake of the Father. 

Over my many years of being involved in ministry, I oftentimes have heard people talk about “my church.”  Comments like, “This is my church” and “This is the way we do things at my church” are not healthy and usually give the world the wrong impression of what God’s Church is really all about.  In reality, the Church belongs to God, and the mission of the Church is to give itself away so that the world might come to know this gracious, loving, and generous God we call the Father.  The mission of the Church is to give away God’s Word so that others might come to know God.  In doing so, as we learned this morning, the world may come to know that they, too, have eternal life.  The mission of the Church is to glorify God by serving others.

This prayer that Jesus prays in the Gospel is one of unity and witness to the love of God in the world.  Jesus prays that his followers, you and me, will be like him and be good stewards with all the blessings God has granted us.  It is a beautiful prayer, but one in which a huge responsibility is passed on to those who proclaim to be disciples of this Jesus Christ.  This is what I find to be so scary.  I am not sure I am always up to such a big task.

Yet, there is great promise in this prayer.  As we learned last week, in this last portion of John’s Gospel, Jesus has been teaching the disciples about the future.  Although he seems to be saying that the future of God’s mission is dependent on how we live our lives, he also makes it clear in this prayer that the he does not entrust the future, his Church, to the human church that is you and me.  Instead, Jesus entrusted the future of the Church to God.  Jesus prayed for us and trusted that God, The Father, would grant us all we need to accomplish His mission.  Jesus is praying for the success of the community's work in the world, our work.  He desires that we witness to the world, but he knows that to do this we will need God to guide us, empower us, and protect us.   Jesus and the Father are one, and now he asks the Father to make us one with him.
 
What an awesome thing Jesus does for us in this prayer.  This is God’s Church, and we have been made one with the Father and with the Son.  It is now up to us to be the stewards that God has created us to be.  It is up to us to be the Church to a broken world.  It is up to us to be like Christ and give ourselves, our time, and our possessions to the world.  It is up to us to place our faith in the Father and let go of what we desire to hang onto so that the world may know Him as we know Him.  This is the prayer Jesus prays.  May we be the answer to Jesus’ prayer!  Amen.