Today’s Scripture: John 17:1–16
“And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” — John 17:3 (ESV)
Reflection
Today I remembered to pray for the Holy Spirit to allow me to understand. I knew I should do that, but I haven’t been doing it. Just reflecting on what P. Abe told us today, the grammatical-historical, Christ-centered method, can be used in today’s reading.
Today’s passage is about Jesus’s High Priestly Prayer. This is the longest recorded prayer by Jesus, and it is only found in the Gospel of John.
It’s called the High Priestly Prayer because Jesus is embodying the role of the High Priest. Historically, the High Priest was the only person who could directly talk to God on a specific day, Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement. In this passage, we see that Jesus is just straight up praying directly to God without any worry of dying like the High Priest had in the past. Half of Jesus’s prayer is about how he directly intercedes for us to the Father, like when he asks God to keep us united in his name while Jesus is gone. I love how my commentary says that Jesus keeps us united to reflect the pattern of the unity between God the Father and God the Son.
The other half is Jesus asking the Father to glorify him. Wherein did Christ’s humiliation consist? “Christ’s humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross; in being buried, and continuing under the power of death for a time” (WSC q. 27). Very interestingly, we see that Jesus’s life on this earth was very humble and humiliating for Jesus because he literally is God! Additionally, his death on the cross was also humiliating. Wherein consisteth Christ’s exaltation? “Christ’s exaltation consisteth in his rising again from the dead on the third day, in ascending up into heaven, in sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and in coming to judge the world at the last day” (WSC q. 28). However, Jesus was not limited to the grave, and he rose again, showing him glorified. I can also see Jesus’s death being glorifying to the Father, since God’s plan is being fulfilled. Soon after Jesus says this prayer, he will be glorified. I love where Jesus asks God to restore his glory to the state it was in before the world existed.
While reading this, I also thought of the passage earlier in John where it says that Jesus is our shepherd, and he has not lost any of the sheep that have been given to him. I caught how it says that “not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction” (v. 12). I noticed how it says that the son of destruction, Judas, has been lost, yet it doesn’t say by whom. Jesus did not lose him, he lost himself.
Finally, I would like to close my QT with a pang of nostalgia. For my KPCYG ogs, does anyone remember Roots retreat 2023, “Not of this World”? I want to just remind myself that my home isn’t on this earth. My eternal home is with Jesus and with my fellow brothers and sisters who show me glimpses of Jesus. When the world hates me, I just need to remember that I am a sojourner in a faraway land. I have not yet made it home.