My sermon here for the Seventh Sunday of Easter draws heavily on this reflection from Pastor David Lose. The sermon text for this weekend is the Gospel reading from John 17:6-19. This sermon was actually only preached on Saturday.
For Sunday’s worship, we did a different sort of service without a traditional sermon. We shaped worship around the Faith5 as an order of service, and had interactive discussion questions in small groups as the sermon, along with a few brief points that I shared. A few pictures of our prayer stations and the discussion questions are posted here. Here’s the “traditional” sermon from this weekend!
Grace and peace from God our Father and our risen Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen
Pastor Nicki Gumbel tells a story about a man he knows by the name of Earl. Earl had far too much money, enough that he didn’t need to work, and with all his free time and money, he turned to drugs. He took all kinds of drugs, including heroin. Not surprisingly, he ended up in the hospital.
Someone came to visit him at the hospital and gave him a New Testament. He thought this was a great gift, not because he was religious, but because the paper in the New Testament was very thin, just perfect for rolling joints to smoke.
He rolled his way through Mathew, he rolled his way through Mark, he rolled his way through Luke, but when he came to John’s Gospel, he started reading. In the words of John’s Gospel, he encountered Jesus Christ, and his whole life changed.
I first heard that story a number of years ago, and apparently it’s true. Reading God’s Word can change your life.
Personally, if I were going to give someone a Bible to read, especially someone who doesn’t know much about Jesus, I wouldn’t tell them to start with John. I’d probably start with Luke, because it has the best Christmas story and I think Luke’s version is the easiest to follow. Luke spends a lot more time on what Jesus does and setting the scene for the story than John. He’s a good storyteller.
John tells the story a little differently. Although gives John the Baptist a couple of verses, he skips right over the Christmas story, and already by chapter 12, he’s covered Jesus’ entire ministry. The Last Supper starts in chapter 13, and then there’s a four-chapter-long speech by Jesus. It’s challenging to read, because it’s not really a narrative story.
John is very clear that Jesus knows this is the end of his earthly ministry. Jesus knows he’s about to be arrested and executed. His long speech is basically his farewell address to his disciples, trying to summarize all his teachings for them before he has to leave them and they’ll be on their own. It’s a little like he’s helping the disciples cram before a test, before their faith is tested by Good Friday.
At the end of his speech, in the section we just heard tonight, Jesus prays for his disciples, and it’s a profoundly beautiful thing to do.
Think about it. This is the night before he’s going to be crucified. He’s about to get arrested, and beaten, and condemned. On a spiritual level, he’s about to confront the forces of evil, to be totally separated from his Father, about to take all the sins of the world onto himself. With all that undoubtedly running through his head, he stops everything, and he prays for those he loves.
Have you ever had someone pray for you? It’s a beautiful act of love.
Sometimes I fear we run the risk of prayer becoming routine. Every week in church we pray for people who are sick. When someone dies, we pray for their family. On the last page of the bulletin, there are suggestions to pray for our shut-ins, for world peace, for missionaries, and for people serving in the military.
All of those are great things to pray for, but sometimes we forget the real power of prayer. Prayer is not just a good thing to do as a Christian, or something to make ourselves feel better. Prayer is love.
Last week we talked about those five steps in the Faith5, and if you weren’t here last week, you can take a bookmark and summer devotional book from the table on your way out tonight. The Faith5 steps start with sharing your highs and lows, and then in the prayer step, you’re supposed to pray for each other’s highs and lows.
To quote Pastor David Lose, from whom I got much of what I’m talking about tonight, “Taking the time to name the hopes, joys, concerns, fears, and thanksgiving of someone you know and bring all of that into the presence of God through prayer is an act of love, plain and simple. It expresses your care, your concern, and your compassion for the one(s) for whom you are praying. And it expresses your trust that they are as important to God as they are to you.”
Praying for each other is more than just thinking nice thoughts about someone or sending good vibes to them. Prayer is taking our concerns to God, our Heavenly Father.
When we pray, we remind ourselves of our faith. We remind ourselves to look for where God is working in our world. Giving thanks in prayer is really about acknowledging what God has done and is doing.
The disciples get to hear Jesus give thanks to his Father for them. They get to hear Jesus thank God that they have obeyed God’s word. What a powerful experience for them!
When you pray and give thanks to God for someone in your life, or for something someone’s done for you, do you let them know? Imagine how powerful it would be to overhear someone giving thanks to God for you. Paul does this a lot in his letters.
Prayer is also a chance to share our needs with God. Praying for our concerns or fears means acknowledging our need for God. It’s admitting we can’t do it on our own. Relying on God is an act of faith.
Jesus does this too. He loves the disciples enough to take his concern for them to God. He’s honest with them too. He’s afraid that they’re going to be hated by the world, that they’ll be in danger, that they’re about to go through the hardest experience of their lives, watching him die. He knows they’re about to be tested, and they’re not going to pass.
All those concerns he takes to his Father in heaven. It’s an act of faith and love. Imagine how much it helped the disciples to know Jesus was praying for them.
Praying doesn’t remove or fix the problem. Even in Jesus’ prayer, he says he’s not asking God to take them out of the world, but to protect them in it. They need to know that no matter what, Jesus cares for them. They need to know they’re not alone.
Sometimes, of course, prayers do fix the problem. Sometimes when we pray for healing, God answers yes, and people are healed. But often, it’s just as important to know someone is praying for you as it is to get the answer you want from God. Maybe you’ve had that experience too.
For us today, the most profound part of Jesus’ prayer isn’t even in this reading. I have no idea why the lectionary writers stopped where they did, because the next two verses are incredible.
In his prayer for the disciples, after he says, “For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified” Jesus continues. Listen to verses 20 and 21: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”
Jesus doesn’t only pray for the group of disciples around the table with him; he prays for us too, for you and me! We have come to believe through the message these disciples passed on! Jesus’ prayer is for you too!
Perhaps in his Gospel, John spends so much time on Jesus’ teaching and prayer because it’s still relevant to us today. Jesus’ prayer is the same 2,000 years later.
Jesus loves you. Jesus cares for you. Jesus prays for you. Which makes it possible for us to do the same for others.
Amen