Jesus was drawing near to the end of his farewell discourse to his disciples, a sermon he gave to them (according to John) on the evening of the last supper. In our gospel lesson for today, Jesus broke into a prayer to the Father. It is a famous prayer called the high priestly prayer. There are many spiritual riches to mine in this prayer and our text. For our purposes today on this last Sunday of Easter, the Sunday after the festival of Jesus' ascension into heaven with the church's celebration of the Trinity not far off, the last sentence of our lesson for today is especially crucial to us.

Jesus had been talking to his disciples about life after he left them (John 14:2-3, 18). By the time he got to the prayer in our lesson for today, he was addressing the theme of his glorification (Jo…