May 20, 2012 at Calvary
Evangelical Lutheran Church – Mechanicsburg, PA
“I have given them Your word, and the world has hated them because
they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that You
take them out of the world, but that You keep them from the evil one.”
On this Seventh and final Sunday
of Easter in 2012, you hear Jesus praying for His disciples. You have heard a
portion of Jesus’ prayer offered to His Father on Holy Thursday, the night on
which He was betrayed by Judas. Jesus prays for His disciples as He reaches the
culmination of His redemptive work on earth, including His death, resurrection,
and ascension.
In His prayer, Jesus refers to
what He had done among His disciples during His time on earth. Jesus says to
His Father: “While I was with them, I
kept them in Your name, which You have given Me. I have guarded them, and not
one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture
might be fulfilled.” Jesus summarizes His work. With authority Jesus had
kept His disciples in the Father’s name. He had acted like a shepherd, guarding
or keeping watch over those put under His charge. And like a good shepherd,
Jesus had not lost any of the sheep, any of the disciples except for Judas, the
one whose treachery the Scriptures had foretold.
From Galilee to Judea, Jesus had
led the Twelve. He had taught them the Father’s will. He had given correction
and rebuke when necessary. He had commended and praised right belief and
action. Jesus had given the disciples a new identity by calling them to follow
Him and to know what He reveals. He mentions this in the prayer: “I have given them Your word, and the world
has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the
world.” The eleven faithful disciples had a new origin: they were born of
God, born from above, born anew. Now they stood against the world and those who
were not of God.
But something was about to
change in this relationship that Jesus had with His disciples. It is the reason
for Jesus’ prayer. After speaking of what He had done while with His disciples,
Jesus says: “But now I am coming to You,
and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in
themselves.” Jesus is leaving His disciples. That would transpire in the
next weeks, beginning with His betrayal. Jesus is meant to suffer, die, be
buried, rise again, and to ascend to the Father. It is what the Church has
celebrated during these past weeks of the Easter Season.
So what would this change bring
to Jesus’ disciples? They would not have Jesus there keeping them in the Father’s
name. They would not have Jesus there guarding them. Their shepherd was leaving
them. But He was not abandoning them. That is seen in the words that Jesus
speaks. Though He leaves, Jesus does not let His disciples fend for themselves.
No, He establishes a continued protection for His disciples, turning them over
to the care that His Father provides: “I
do not ask that You take them out of the world, but that You keep them from the
evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify
them in the truth; Your word is truth.” Now Jesus’ disciples were under the
protection of their Father in heaven, the One who had given them new birth and
received them as sons of His divine household.
What Jesus does for the Eleven
has also happened for you. It has happened in the way established by the Father
and enacted by the Son. You have not had Jesus with you as the first disciples
did. But what Jesus says about the Eleven has been done for you: “I have given them Your word, and the world
has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the
world.” The word of the Father has been given to you. You have received the
testimony of God about His Son. That is what Jesus’ disciples have deposited
into your possession.
You heard Jesus pray for His
disciples, but you also heard of what they were charged to do. Jesus’ prayer
said: “As You have sent Me into the
world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate
Myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.” Jesus sent His
disciples into the world with a purpose: to bear witness to what they had seen
Him do and to hand down the word that He had given them. When Judas, the son of
destruction, was replaced, Peter makes note of that task: “So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the
Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until
all the day when He was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a
witness to His resurrection.” That was the disciples’ mission, the charge
given them by Jesus.
Sanctified in truth and bearing
the word of the Father, the disciples did so. They proclaimed the testimony
that the Father gave about His Son. The divine testimony about Jesus’ identity
and the work that He did was the content of their preaching. In that content
there is truth and life—the truth and life that you have received. John makes
that clear: “If we receive the testimony
of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that
He has borne concerning His Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the
testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made Him a liar, because
He has not believed the testimony that God has borne concerning His Son. And
this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His
Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does
not have life.” That is what the disciples carried into the world despite
its hatred of them. That is what the disciples brought to others, so that they
would receive the word of the Father and be sanctified in its truth.
So that word has come to you. What
it did for the Eleven, it has done for you. The word of the Father has been
given to you. You have received the testimony of God about His Son. And what
Jesus says about such people stands true for you: “I have given them Your word, and the world has hated them because they
are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” You have a new
origin. You have a new identity. You no longer belong to the world and its
antipathy toward God. That’s what you once were. Dead in sin. Blind to
righteousness. Ignorant of God. But now you belong to God. Now you are of God.
Now you share the life of God.
What happened to you? You
received the word of the Father: “And
this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life in His Son.
Whoever has the Son has life….” You possess the life that Jesus earned by
His death and resurrection for your sake. But that does bring opposition. What
Jesus says is true: “the world has hated
them because they are not of the world.” Yet, you are not left to fend for
yourselves. No, Jesus’ prayer to the Father is offered on your behalf: “I do not ask that You take them out of the
world, but that You keep them from the evil one.” And how is that keeping
done? By what Jesus petitions His Father to do for you: “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.”
The Father’s testimony about His
Son sets you apart for life. Its truth brings you holiness. It establishes a
right relationship between Him and you. Holding fast to that word, you will
possess the life that it brings: “And
this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life in His Son.
Whoever has the Son has life….” It is how you fulfill the description given
of those who are blessed, as the Psalm declared: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor
stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight
is in the Law of the Lord, and on
His Law he meditates day and night.” Receiving that testimony and word, you
live under the Father’s protection.
What Jesus prays for you
actually is done. And not only is prayer offered on your behalf, you have the ability
to ask for yourself: “And this is the
confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His
will He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know
that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.” The Father’s word
made known to you discloses His will. So you can ask Him according to His will.
Ask for guidance. Ask for forgiveness. Ask for protection. Ask for the trust
and confidence in His promises. It will be given to you. For you have the Son
and have life. You have the testimony about the Son and His work for you. And
you have the word of truth that sanctifies and sets you apart.
The Father’s will is for you to
be united with Him and His Son. The Son’s will is for you to be united with Him
and each other. So you are prayed for: “Holy
Father, keep them in Your name, which You have given Me, that they may be one,
even as we are one.” It will be so, as you abide in His word and believe in
the testimony about Jesus. You are not left alone, but have God on your side.
The world may hate you, but the Father has sealed you in His love. The evil one
tries to deceive, but you are preserved from him. So it is as the Father keeps
you in the name that He bestows to you. Sharing the same faith as the apostles,
receiving the same word of truth from the Father as the apostles, believing the
same testimony of Jesus proclaimed by the apostles, you will be one, sanctified
for eternal life, kept in the faith, and never lost.
+ In the Name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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