The Prayer That Jesus Prays
The Prayer That Jesus Prays by Rev. L. John Gable
March 27, 2022
I would like for you to think for a moment about your own prayer life during the past few days or weeks, or as far back as you can recall. I’d like for you to think not so much about how often you did or did not pray, but about what it was you prayed for? My guess is you likely prayed for family members and friends, most likely for those you remembered with special concerns for healing or protection. You likely prayed for answers and guidance for some specific concern; and certainly for peace or some kind of resolution to conflict, either personal or global, as I know we are all praying for Ukraine. Perhaps you offered some kind of prayer for the great social issues of our day and for all those affected, perhaps yourself included, and for all those who make decisions on our behalf. You likely prayed for some measure of forgiveness, either in general or in detail, and hopefully you offered some kind of a prayer of thanksgiving for all the blessings God has given. And I’m sure you can add others to the list of the things you prayed for, but have you ever stopped to consider what Jesus prayed for?
In some ways it is a rather curious thought, isn’t it, that Jesus prayed at all, inasmuch that He was God in flesh, yet we know that He had a very active prayer life. Throughout the Gospels we see Him early in the morning, mid-day and late at night stealing away to be alone with His Heavenly Father in prayer. He was praying as a human without losing touch with His divinity. So, in this we see Him as both the One to Whom we pray and as a pray-er Himself; but have you ever wondered what Jesus, the Son of God, had to pray about?
We know the disciples recognized the depth of Jesus’ prayer life and wanted some of it for themselves as they asked Him, “Lord, teach us to pray like You pray”, so He gave them/us the model prayer which we have come to call the Lord’s Prayer, with its three petitions for God’s name to be made holy, for His Kingdom to come and for His will to be done, all under the general heading of “on earth as it is in heaven”, in addition to other sorted requests for daily food and forgiveness, but still we don’t actually know what Jesus prayed for Himself, or do we?
John 17 is unique in Scripture in that we actually hear Jesus, not teaching but praying, and it comes at the end of what is commonly called His “last discourse”, His final will and testament, John chapters 13-17. This final teaching, which we might call “the Lord’s Lord’s Prayer”, is given at the very end of His ministry, perhaps at the close of His last supper, after He has been betrayed, but before His arrest. He is giving His final instructions to His closest friends and followers, and then closes this teaching by praying for them, and through the pen of John, we get to listen in.
Interestingly enough, Jesus begins by praying for Himself. That seems rather strange, doesn’t it? In so much of my prayer life, perhaps I’d be safe to say in our prayer lives, we have to battle becoming too selfish and self-centered, asking only for ourselves, our needs, our concerns; yet it appears that Jesus does just that, and for good reason. As we listen in we hear Him say, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Me so that I may glorify You.” This request is at the heart of Jesus’ prayer, and so it can and should be of ours as well. “Father, glorify me – but not for my sake – but for Your sake so that You may be glorified.” Jesus knew His purpose and He had spent His entire life and ministry fulfilling it, so He didn’t want to lose it at the end. He knew His purpose was to do the will and the work of His Heavenly Father in such a way that others would come to believe in Him and so gain the gift of eternal life. “This is eternal life,” He says, “that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Given what He was about to face in the week to come, He prayed for strength to stay the course and do the work the Father had given Him to do. So, to this end He prays, “Father, glorify Me so that I might glorify You and bring others to You!”
Friends, how might our days be different if this were our prayer each day, “Lord, use me today for Your purposes. Let my light so shine before others that they may see my good works and give glory to You!” In Margaret Lee Runbeck’s book, Hope of Earth, there is a lovely scene in which the old man thinks back to his childhood and recalls the first prayer he ever learned, “Father, I am your child and this is Your day. Let us both fill each other with Your good. Amen.” This was Jesus’ prayer, and it can be ours as well, this day and every day.
His second petition is related, but it shifts the focus away from Himself toward the disciples, but still to the same end and purpose. He prays, “I am asking on their behalf”, then asks for two things: first, for their protection both in His absence and from the Evil One, and second, for their sanctification, which is a fancy theological word that means their continued growth and maturity in faith and grace. In this prayer Jesus prays specifically for the 12, rather the 11, who would continue to carry His message of salvation to the world. Just as He prayed for His own strength and protection in His final week, so He knew that the disciples were being faced with a daunting task and that they would need all the protection and guidance God could give them to be successful in their mission. This was His prayer for them, and, I dare say, it is His prayer for us still today.
I find it interesting that Jesus prays not that they, or that we, be scooped up and taken out of the world, but that we be strengthened and protected in it. God needs us to be active and engaged in the world around us, not removed from it, in order that we might do the work of ministry He has given us to do. We have to be engaged and in the world in order to do that.
So His prayer makes sense, Jesus prays for Himself because He has been entrusted with the message of salvation from His Heavenly Father; He then prays for the protection and faithfulness of His disciples because they/we have been entrusted with sharing that same message with the world; but then the third and final petition of His prayer may surprise us. We read, “I ask not only on behalf of these (disciples), but also on behalf of those who will believe in Me because of their Word.” Who might those people be? They are us! Jesus, here, is praying for us, for you and for me today. We are the ones who have come to believe because of the faithful testimony of those first disciples and all who have faithfully shared the message since.
And, what does Jesus pray for, for us? He prays that we all might be “one”. Quite remarkably, He prays that we might be together as one as He and the Father are one. Listen as He prays, “The glory that You have given Me I have given them, so that they might be one, as we are one.” Friends, consider all the things Jesus could have prayed for for us, but this is His first and primary desire, that we might be united as one in His name. I wonder with you, what does that really mean and how are we doing at it?
When Jesus prays for our “one-ness”, our unity, I believe He is referring both to the vertical and to the horizontal dimension of our faith. The vertical dimension has to do with our common relationship to God by faith in Jesus Christ, as we read in the book of Ephesians, there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all”. You have frequently heard me quote this great motto of our faith: “In the essentials unity; in the non-essentials liberty; and in all things love.” Of course there is debate, no doubt even among us, as to which are the essentials and which are the non-essentials, and perhaps we would do well not to try to nail that one down too tightly, but Jesus gives us some clear direction here. It is essential, if we are going to call ourselves Christians or a Christian Church, that we are unified and in agreement that there is one God and that Jesus is the Son of God, our Savior and Lord. Jesus affirms these essentials when He says, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and (Me) Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” This common agreement about who God is and how we are rightly related to Him by faith in Jesus Christ is essential and non-negotiable.
That vertical relationship then has horizontal implications as everyone who makes that one essential claim of faith is then also related to everyone else who makes the same claim. This is what Jesus prays for for us, that we might be united together as brothers and sisters because of our common parentage in faith. I love the way E. Stanley Jones captures the essence of this prayer for unity when he says, “You belong to God, I belong to God, we belong together.”
But this unity for which Jesus prays is not necessarily founded on the faulty notion that every believer is going to believe exactly the same thing, or every follower is going to follow in exactly the same way; rather it is founded on the commitment that despite our differences in understanding and convictions and practices we are going to remain united because “the One who unites us is greater than anything that seeks to divide us.” As long as we are unified in our common relationship with God by faith in Jesus Christ (the essential), then we are free to be diverse and varied in our expressions of the faith (the non-essentials). Consider this, in 1656, Puritan Richard Baxter wrote to Presbyterians and Lutherans who were at odds with each other, (no doubt over some non-essential), saying, “We must keep close to the inherent simplicity of the Christian faith, and the foundation and center of unity. We must learn to distinguish between certainties and uncertainties, between necessaries and unnecessaries, between universals and private opinions, and we must lay the stress of the church’s peace upon the former, not the latter.” Again, “In the essentials unity; in the non-essentials liberty; in all things love” captures the essence of Jesus’ prayer for us.
When Jesus prayed for unity, His prayer was not simply to the end that we would all get along and play well together; no, there was a greater purpose, the very same purpose He was given by God and that He gave to the original twelve: that the unbelieving world might come to know and believe in the saving love of God. Listen again to His prayer, “The glory that You have given Me, I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and You in Me, that they may be completely one, so that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me.”
Our Lord has given us a purpose for being, the very same purpose the Father gave to Him and He gave to the original twelve, to help bring the world to Himself. This task is so great that we cannot do it on our own. We will only be successful in our mission if we are united to Him and with one another – vertically in a common faith, horizontally in a common commitment to work together with all who name the name of Jesus as Savior and Lord.
This prayer is remarkable in so many ways and it certainly deserves far more of our attention than we have been able to give it this morning, so I will leave you with this question and charge: What can we do to help answer Jesus’ prayer? We commonly think of Him as being the One who answers our prayers, but what part can we play in answering His prayer?
How can we bring glory to Him so that the Father is glorified?
In what ways can we support and encourage one another, and all those who serve and share in the ministry of the Word, for their protection and strength? And what measures can we take in answer to Jesus’ prayer that we all may be one, to the end that the world might know His saving love?
This is the prayer that Jesus prays and we have our part to play in answering it.
Rev. L. John Gable
Tabernacle Presbyterian Church
Indianapolis, IN