Scripture Reading:"By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)
There is something in the Holy Week story that always takes my breath away. Everything was getting ready to shift into high gear, and every moment counted as Jesus knew exactly when He would be arrested… This was a KAIROS moment of all KAIROS moments, and the clock was counting down. Jesus prayed a very specific intercessory prayer in some of His last moments of “freedom”. VERY specific, because Jesus was and is ALWAYS very specific.
And the final part of His penultimate “private” intercessory prayer — the long one before His final brief one in the Garden — before His arrest — was for US.
(The first time I ever read John 17, as a new Christian over 45 years ago; I marveled, “Wow, Jesus prayed this for Me!” Because that’s what John 17:20 says… For ME!)
YOU and ME.
TODAY. RIGHT NOW.
WE WERE ON HIS MIND.
And He prayed ONE THING, over and over.
You Bible students KNOW that from Genesis to Revelation — when God or Jesus REPEATS SOMETHING — that’s a BIG “HEADS UP.” John 17 is the longest recorded prayer that we have from Jesus. It is deeply significant.
First, Jesus sought God for Himself; next, He prayed for His disciples. Then, the final six verses of the chapter were for all future believers.
He prayed hard for UNITY as Christians. As far as I can tell from the text, He prayed at least FOUR TIMES for unity: that we would all be one, just as He and His Father are One. He did not pray for prominence, or governmental power, or money, or favor, or easy lives. Out of everything He could pray for, He prayed over and over for UNITY. Because He surely knew that we were going to need it.
Warren Wiersbe said of John 17: “The disciples had often exhibited a spirit of selfishness, competition, and disunity, and this must’ve broken the Saviour’s heart.”
It still does.
We are RELATED. WAY deeper than DNA, we are ONE. DNA is physical and temporal; our relationship as believers is spiritual and eternal. There is no “us” and “them”. Since I am a Christian, I have to find a way to let that one go. A root of bitterness, no matter how “justified”, is never justified in God’s eyes. Gary M. Burge says, “Jesus envisages a profound spiritual intimacy that changes human life.”
It is part of the hard work of sanctification in each believer’s heart, to seek out any bitter roots and hand them over to God. Any unforgiveness, bias, meanness, unfairness, prejudice; any thing that we “hold on to”, we have to give to God for Him to remove the bitter root and cleanse our hearts and tell us what to do. Across family divisions, generations, races, cultures, politics… It’s way more than a two-way street because it applies to every believer in all directions; but it so intimately centers on each of us and God.
HE DIED TO MAKE US ONE. I kneel for that, and I lock arms for that, and I stand for that. Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.
Prayer: Father, begin with me. In this volatile, confusing world, search in my own heart for any bitter roots, which defile many and from which You have promised each of us a way of escape. Lord, I might “look okay” to the whole world, but I want to look right to YOU. Expose what I need to see, and help me to deal with it thoroughly; exactly as You command. Look across all my relationships: family, friends, work, church, neighbors, community… across political and racial and cultural lines; show me any biases and meanness and unkindness in my own heart… If I need to make amends — show me how, and let me be quick to do so. If I need to forgive someone even if they do not seek forgiveness — let me be quick and thorough to do so. Father, sometimes this is overwhelming and might even seem “unfair” and maybe “too much to ask”; and yet You insist… Help me to loosen my death grip on anything that I need to let go of; to hold that heavy thing lightly in my hand and give it all into Your Hands, over and over, as many times as it takes — until it is done forever and there is total freedom and peace with You. “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.” (Psalm 139:23-24)