In 1936, near the beginning of the Spanish Civil War one horrible center of fighting was the Alcázar fortress near Toledo. In the middle of horrific fighting, however, every day the firing stopped twice in order to allow a blind beggar to tap his way on the street between the firing lines. We can imagine how welcome those few minutes were to the men on both sides. They probably hoped that the blind man walked slower to give them a few more seconds of peace. Then the reprieve ended and the slaughter again engulfed the two armies that were struggling to kill each other.[1]
We meet Jesus in a similar critical moment. He’s in the middle of a few hours of relief between his antagonists’ struggling to arrest him and their final success —apprehending him at night and dragging him to trial and death. So, today’s text is the pause in John’s gospel just before Jesus’ arrest, trial, and crucifixion. Immediately before our text in chapter 13, Jesus shares his last meal with his students, washing their feet and teaching them from his humble example. Then in chapters 14 to 16 he continues teaching. Finally, in chapter 17 he offers his prayer in his last few minutes of peace. This break in the fury ends soon. Under cover of darkness the soldiers and police arrest him on the Mount of Olives. From there the action continues downward to his destruction.
In this short interval before he’s whisked off to suffer and die, Jesus prays at the end of his public influence. All we need do is remember that our prayers get more honest the closer we come to danger, and we’ll understand how to evaluate Jesus’ prayer. He prays here for what he most cares about. In his prayer we listen to the rock bottom of his concerns.
I heard of an agnostic who was very interested in peace and justice. One day, hoping that the Christian church would have something to say about achieving a world of peace and justice, he attended worship. It was a congregation, however, whose manner of prayer was to say “just” in every sentence. He reported, “They prayed, ‘O Lord just help us… just give us… just protect us… just be merciful to us.’ I realized that instead of ‘justice’ all they cared about was ‘just us.’” In this portion of his prayer Jesus prays just for his students; but, beyond where we read today he expands his prayer to include all who will believe because of them. That’s a huge prayer for Jesus and a big assignment for us. Our faith isn’t merely about us but about our reaching others with Jesus’ faith, compassion, and healing.
As we live for Jesus our lives aren’t perfect. As we pray, our prayers aren’t perfect and others can misunderstand our prayers. If the truth be told, on the scale of what’s necessary we often, even in our religious life, focus on what ranks second or third (or twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth). Our life with God can be like a cross-country race between four runners. The first runner is splendid and soon is so far ahead that he’s out of sight. One runner is slow and soon lags way behind. The only race interesting for its competition is between two equally able runners. Pretty soon everyone at the meet is watching those two battle for second and third and almost forget who’s the best in the whole race. The church can be like that as we major in minors. We settle for the pretty good instead of the best. Jesus’ prayer faces us with what is and who is supremely important.
In the little time left in Jesus’ earthly life he doesn’t teach us directly any longer. He lets us listen in as he prays and allows us to be affected by it. Shakespeare’s contemporary Ben Johnson said, “Language most shows the man: speak that I may see thee.” When Jesus speaks to God, we perceive who he really is. We see his self-understanding and his intentions. We view his determination and his pain.
He’s about to die; yet he prays for us. If I were about to die, I’d be praying for me. Jesus prays for us. We’ve all known that people pray for us. Sometimes, although those prayers for us certainly reach God, they haven’t affected us. Maybe in the past prayers for us have seemed to bounce off our soul like a fire hose only splattering water against a brick wall. Or we’ve actively defended ourselves from prayers, batting them away like playing tennis. Sometimes it’s a while before even Jesus’ prayers truly get through to us.
The seventeenth-century scientist and philosopher Blaise Pascal still amazes those who study him. He had mastered Latin and Greek by the time he was twelve. He devised a way to measure an angled cross-section of a cone, invented the world’s first calculating machine, investigated the dynamics of liquids, experimented with the barometer, and developed a theory of probability before dying at 39. Historians approach Pascal from different perspectives, but they all rate him a genius.
Humans can use our intelligence to hold God at arm’s length. Pascal had believed in God but wandered away from his devotion until he drifted into despair. Then one night as he faced God he read this prayer of Jesus in John 17, and he seemed surrounded by God’s fire of love. He experienced the highest and grandest of ecstasy in God’s presence for two hours. His life was totally changed there within God’s presence and Jesus’ prayer for him. He redirected his genius toward defending the Christian faith and commending to others Jesus as the very character of God on earth.
As with Blaise Pascal, Jesus’ prayer and God’s presence don’t meet on the page of the Bible. They join in our lives now. When our youngest daughter was in college I was surfing the channels one night, and I came across her college basketball team on TV. I watched and, as the camera panned over the fans, I peered into the stands, and there’s Lydia, jumping, waving, and yelling her throat out. I knew she always had her cell phone with her. So I phoned and when she answered I said, “Hey Lyd, I just saw you on TV at the basketball game.”
She said, “No you didn’t.”
“Yes I did. I’m positive I saw you screaming like a fiend. You’re in the stands in the gym.”
“No, I’m not.”
I was confused. “I’m sure that you —”
She said, “The game was last night. It’s a rebroadcast.”
When you read Jesus’ prayer, it’s not history. It’s not even a believable rebroadcast. Jesus prays for us right now. He prays, “Now they know that everything you have given me is from you” (v. 7). If we don’t have any access to the living God now, if we have no sense or experience of God now, why study the Bible about Jesus way back then? Our experience with Jesus — like that of Blaise Pascal — can be that of God’s fiery presence right now. Or our life with Jesus can be like that daily pause in the Spanish Civil War in 1936 — that necessary time and space needed for bare survival. Our meeting Jesus in his prayer is more than a chance to gasp in the middle of a too fast, too confusing, or too dangerous life. Jesus, in prayer, offers to give us a whole new pattern for living.
E.L. Doctorow set his novel of the American Civil War in General Sherman’s “march to the sea.” It’s titled The March. In it Doctorow portrays in fictional form not only real things that happened in the Civil War, but things that happen in our lives. The Union forces set fire to the cotton in Columbia, South Carolina, and the sparks from the cotton spread and begin to ignite the city. The flames leap from one neighborhood to the next block and now a convent school is in danger of burning. The Abbess Sister Ann Marie comes leading the 25-30 children out of the fire. The Union soldiers posted to guard them have no choice but to follow. She commands the children not to cry, to look only at the ground as they walk, and to trust God to protect them. They follow her out through the danger, and right there is a tiny spot of order in the center of chaos, a group of believers walking by faith if not by sight.[2]
That’s much the way Jesus leads us in this world, even if all we see is the back of his legs in the smoke. No matter what we have to go through, he says, “Follow me.” Our faith in Jesus grants us new and certain direction when all around us is falling apart. Jesus even leads us toward a world of peace and justice, teaching us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. The best way for us to appropriate such a gigantic life-change is to pray.
Jesus, while he’s in danger, prays for his students. Not only will he be arraigned, found guilty, and executed, but in his trial Jesus will be questioned about his students. Jesus prayed for his students before they too were in danger. He prays for us before we’re in danger, and God’s presence answers Jesus’ prayer for us right now — sometimes with holy fire surrounding us but always with a leader who guides us through everything, even a world that’s burning down around us.
Here, this moment, in whatever circumstances we suffer, in whatever dangers that ambush us from the outside or surprise us from the inside, now, no matter what race we’re in and seem to be losing or what manner of civil war rages inside of us demanding that we give our attention, energy and loyalty to something that is less than eternal, now — when we really need it — Jesus prays for us.
We can become distracted by things around us: the rising price of gas or the falling value of houses. We can be preoccupied by the things about us: losing our youth or losing our faculties, losing our confidence or losing our reputation.
We’re well advised in all situations to concentrate upon what Jesus prays for us. He prays that God protect us in God’s name.
Our culture has slowly changed how a person is named. Nowadays many parents make up a name for their child that no one else has used. Even former generations gave names that only vaguely generated sentiment by granting a child the name of a forebear or of a favorite friend. So it’s hard for us from our culture and experience to understand the significance of names in the Bible. In the biblical world names often expressed something about the person or at least carried the parents’ hope for their child. Names in the Bible were like names among Shoshoni warriors in the 17 and 1800s. They had meaning, and they changed. So, doing historical research about Shoshoni warriors is confusing. At different times in their lives they’d receive a different name because they’d fought well in battle or perhaps stole a good herd of horses. The name changed because it announced something of the man’s character or achievement.[3]
Jesus demonstrates God’s character and power (meaning God’s name) when, instead of praying for himself, he prays for those he loves. Thus, he reveals God’s true nature. And Jesus does it now. As we read the Bible and hear Jesus’ prayer, it’s not a rebroadcast or a rerun. It’s not the repetition of someone else’s experience or even a memory of our own past relationship with God. It’s meeting God right here in the gauntlet we walk through life, now when we are desperate for faith but frightened to lose control of ourselves, here where conflicts rage within us and we long for that gentle pause that God provides those who entrust themselves to Jesus.
We’ll never get all we want from God in this life. Jesus, however, makes sure we get all we need. He protects us in God’s name, the name Jesus prays in verse 11 that God has given to him. Jesus bears God’s name. We realize that God’s name, God’s personality, God’s character and deepest nature are most clearly seen in the one who prays for us and in whose name we pray: Jesus.
Let us pray, Lord Jesus, thank you that you’ve reached into our lives with your compassion. We praise you that, for no merit of our own, you love us, forgive us, and invite us to follow you through life and eternity. Lord, help us to spread your word to others, to pray for others as you have prayed for us, and to give our lives in your service to others. We’ll try to concentrate only on you, no matter our problems. We’ll try merely to look at your heels as we follow you through life’s fires and trust that, when the flames are highest and hottest, they also can carry within them the very presence of God. As you prayed to the heavenly Father, so do we, offering our prayer in your name. Amen.
[1]. Antony Beevor, The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 (London: Penguin, 2006), p. 122.
[2]. E.L. Doctorow, The March (New York: Random House, 2005), pp. 178-179.
[3]. Gale Ontko, Thunder over the Ochoco: The Gathering Storm, Volume 1 (Bend, Oregon: Maverick, 1993), p. xvi.