Jesus prays for us

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26

In those days Peter stood up among the believers (together the crowd numbered about one hundred twenty persons) and said, “Friends, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit through David foretold concerning Judas, who became a guide for those who arrested Jesus - for he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.” 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 the day when he was taken up from us - one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection.” So they proposed two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias. Then they prayed and said, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles.

Psalm 1

Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor lingered in the way of sinners, not sat in the seats of the scornful! Their delight is in the law of the Lord, and they meditate on God’s teaching day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither; everything they do shall prosper. It is not so with the wicked; they are like chaff which the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked shall not stand upright when judgment comes, nor the sinner in the council of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall be destroyed.

1 John 5:9-13

If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son. Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. And this is the testimony: 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. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.

John 17:6-19

I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

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In most of our collective memory, when we think about the prayer Jesus prayed before he was arrested in the garden, we think of “My Father, let this cup pass from me, yet not my will, but Thine be done.” In the Gospel of John, however, Jesus spends the entire 17th chapter of this story praying for those God has given to him. Then they go to the garden where he’s arrested as soon as they arrive. It’s a very different picture. Rather than a man struggling with the knowledge that he will soon encounter rejection and brutality and death, Jesus is praying for those who will soon watch him go through all of this, for his disciples who will also be hated and rejected as he is. And even there he doesn’t pray for the cup to pass them by, but for God to give them the strength of heart and spirit to endure all of the abuse the world will throw at them.

Because the world hated Jesus, it will certainly hate any who claim to follow him. Because God loves the whole world, those who follow Jesus into the midst of the muck and mire will stay in the trenches for the sake of that love.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer had the chance to escape World War Two Germany on a boat for New York, but he decided to remain and try to overthrow Hitler and teach theology in community, believing that he would have no place rebuilding if he wasn’t present for the conflict. We refer to him sometimes as a particular Lutheran saint who wrestled with fear and faith and being a witness to resurrection hope in the midst of terrible times, even though his sacrifice for the sake of the Gospel ultimately cost him his life. And there are many who wish he had just gotten on that boat and survived to teach another day. On the other end of the popular ideology spectrum are those whose hope for a future heaven is so strong that there is little room in their lives, if any, for caring for the world of ecosystems and suffering people in the here-and-now bit of eternity.

So let me make this very clear: Jesus does not come into the world in order that we may escape from it. We are to be a light to the nations, and yeast cannot make a batch of bread dough rise by sitting in its own little bag off to the side of the kitchen counter. We are called and sent into the world to live in it, to love it, to serve and struggle amid all of its sufferings and sickness. And, honestly, there’s no real way to escape imperfection this side of death. I mean, we know this. You ever have one of those days where, when it rains it pours, and everything that could go wrong goes wrong, not to mention the things that never ought to go wrong in the first place are suddenly broken and backwards, like your own head and ability to form complete sentences and respond with kindness to strangers? I know those days when nothing is right and everyone within twenty feet of me gets the full blast of my pre-coffee short-and-sharp commentary on the last seven facebook posts that pushed my buttons or trolled me or just threw off my groove. It would be so much easier if I could just live in a perfect world.

But Jesus doesn’t come to take us away from it all like some Jamaican island vacation. Jesus himself didn’t live life elevated half an inch above ground so as not to get the hem of his robe dirty. Born in blood and the muck of a stable, raised in first century Palestine under the oppression of the Roman Empire, thrown out of the synagogues that raised and taught him, surrounded by hungry, hurting people, day in and day out, Jesus did withdraw from time to time to pray, to focus, and to recharge, but it was time set aside for the sake of entering more earnestly into the maddening crowds, the way that we gather together for worship on Sundays or might start each day with a moment of deep breathing and centering prayer and meditation.

So, knowing that we would face those maddening crowds in our own ways, Jesus spends his last night alive with his friends washing their feet and teaching them about hope, and then he prays for them. Praying that we may be as close a community as Jesus himself is with the Father. That we be protected from the evil one. That we be made holy in the truth of the love of the Divine.

And then, as only God enfleshed can do, he goes and answers his own prayer by making it so. It’s part of that mystery of what it means that Jesus is entirely human and entirely God. It’s kind of hard to explain or imagine, what that looks like or feels like, but it’s also kind of hard to explain or imagine what it looks like for a fantastically diverse people to be one. You just know it when you experience it, when the people of God shine in the world with such brilliance that the world throws all of its ugly fear right back in that co-dependent, abusive manner which says “I hate you, you’re awful, don’t leave me.” In reply to that world, Jesus prays for his disciples, “I love you, you’re human, I will send the Advocate to be with you.”

Because this past Thursday was Ascension Day. We’re in the in-between, waiting space again. Jesus has returned to the Father, and as we tell the Story through the liturgical calendar year, we are now in the space of waiting until the Spirit comes to guide our hearts and give us strength and hope for living in the world and loving it with the love of God. That is what we will celebrate next week at the Pentecost festival, affirming our faith and renouncing all of the lies that draw us away from God. All of the ways the world hates us and works to get us to hate ourselves. Next Sunday we will, with Robin, renounce the empty promises that defy God and cling together to the promises of God, trusting in the love of God as we have seen it expressed throughout Scripture and especially in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

But for today, for the week ahead, for the waiting, in-between resurrection and resurrection time, for all of the times when everything breaks and our tempers flare and our hearts weep and our witness fails, Jesus lives and loves us with a love that makes us one, that makes us whole, that has riven asunder the empty lies and anxious misgivings of a world that tells us we are never enough. We are now more than enough, because Jesus has made us one, has loved us with an eternal love, has sent us into the world with his own Holy Spirit and the truth of the Word of God, that the joy of Jesus may be made complete in us.