“Father, the hour has come.
Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,
just as you gave him authority over all people,
so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him.
Now this is eternal life,
that they should know you, the only true God,
and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
W ith Pentecost upon us and the end of the Easter Season, we come to the most wonderful, confounding, mysterious, daunting, and beautiful passage in all sacred literature, the priestly prayer of Jesus. It is a conclusion and summary of everything he has told us, and everything we have seen him do for us.
It is the heartfelt prayer of a man whose hour has come, whose time is up. As he prays he knows what no one in the Upper Room can know, he will be dead by this time tomorrow evening. He is ready; he will not turn back.
It is the final hour, and the hour of his glory. We have heard several references to the coming hour; it is a signal which sounds throughout the John's Gospel, beginning with the Lord's reply to his mother at Cana, "Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come."
When he might have been arrested, his opponents could not touch him because his hour had not yet come. When the Sadducees met to discuss what to do with him, they could make no decision for the hour had not yet come. Only the Father knew when the hour would come, and only Jesus would recognize its coming. Whether his disciples and enemies knew the hour had come, or not, they were suddenly caught up and swept away by its powerful, ineluctable force. Jesus had sensed its nearness when he heard the Father say, "I have glorified (my name), and will glorify it again."
It is the hour for Jesus to be caught up in a glory so brilliant we know it only in the impenetrable darkness of the Cross. This light is invisible to those who cannot see with the eyes of faith. They see only a helpless, naked man dying on a cross; and they believe they have destroyed the enemy. Blind to truth, they cannot see that he is their only hope of salvation.
His enemies will suppose they have stretched his arms in surrender to their power, for they can neither feel or imagine his embrace of them. They cannot know it is the hour when Jesus has stretched his arms to welcome the entire world into his embrace.
His disciples hear and recognize his intent as he prays to his Father, but they will have little to say from this time on. With the 18th chapter they are plunged into the Passion Narrative and can only follow with Peter into Herod's courtyard; and with his mother and the beloved disciple to Calvary. Nor will they say much until they recognize him standing on the shore by the Sea of Tiberias, "It is the Lord!"
We disciples accept and obey the silent role we're given. We are being saved, and this prayer draws us into salvation. That is, it draws us into the Body of Christ and into the Communion of the Trinity. We are being made like God, as God's life flows within us.
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I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.