21 May2023 Easter 7
Acts 1:6-14; Psalm 68:1-10, 23-35; 1 Peter 5; John 17:1-11
Our first reading starts just before Jesus’ ascension, and he answers the disciples pointed questioning with ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’
And I wonder, how often do we think we ‘know’ what God is about to do according to our own criteria and agenda. ‘this’ has just happened so clearly God will do ‘that’ because ‘that is obviously the best thing’. Well, surprise, surprise, surprise, we don’t have God’s mind or God’s intentions and God is not in the habit of telling us ‘beforehand’ what is going to happen. So, after Jesus’ ascension, the disciples went back to Jerusalem and remained in ‘the room’ praying and waiting for the promised Holy Spirit to come upon them before they went out to share the message Jesus had left with them.
Our Gospel presents us with a prayer which Jesus prays just prior to going into the garden and being arrested. Jesus is sitting around the table, having washed the disciples’ feet and shared the ‘last supper’ with them, the disciples are witnessing this prayer; about them, for them, about God, and Jesus, about what is going to happen and what is hoped for the future. So, I wonder, what difference it made to the disciples to hear these words; to hear Jesus praying that they may know the Father in the same way as Jesus does. To hear Jesus telling God that he has made God’s name known to them; that they are God’s and were given to Jesus by God. To hear Jesus saying that everything they have heard Jesus talking about was given to him by the Father; and that they know, in truth, that Jesus has come from the Father. How would they have felt to hear Jesus say that he will soon no longer be with them; that he is returning to God, and asking for God to protect them so that they may remain as one, in the same way as Jesus and the Father are one. There is more to this prayer that we do not hear this morning, but what we have heard sums up the rest as well. So I wonder, what difference does this prayer make, how might we hear this prayer differently today than we have heard it in the past.
This passage really is a model for prayer. John does not have the ‘teach us how to pray’ followed by a version of the Lord’s prayer. This prayer is the Lord’s prayer according to John. Jesus gives us, in this prayer, a clear definition of eternal life “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” On this last Sunday of Easter, in the season of the resurrection, let us hear these words about eternal life and really hear them; let them take root within us. Eternal life is to know God and Jesus. The end. How might that knowledge change what we have previously thought, and believed, about our future life with God. Does it, in fact, alter our picture of God? Because the key is what it means to ‘know’ God; and for the writer of the fourth gospel, ‘knowing’ God has nothing to do with specified knowledge about God, or what any creedal statements say; knowing God is synonymous with being in relationship with God.
And relationship with God is personal; it is knowing that you are ‘seen’ and that you are ‘heard’; it is knowing that God willingly became one of us and went through the same difficulties and struggles that we face in being human. It is knowing that you are accepted for who you genuinely are; it is being in fellowship with and being intimately known. Relationship with God means that when your own resources are failing, God is there to replenish them; God gives you wine, when you expect water. When you feel like you are losing the battle and everything is stacked against you, God is there offering living water to quench your thirst, acceptance for who you are rather than the rejection others throw at you. It means that when you can’t see your way out of a situation and you find yourself unable to move because of fear, God is there with signposts to lead you out, God calls you out of darkness into God’s marvellous light; God is there bidding you to pick up your bed and walk, to open your eyes and see the wonder around you. When you feel that you have nothing to offer, when you feel like you are not good enough or clever enough or that others can do things much better than you, God calls you to see your own self as God sees you, that you are always good enough, that God does not measure you as humanity does, that God sees your perfection even when all you can see is scars and damage. Relationship with God means that it doesn’t matter what you can offer, when you offer yourself without reserve, it will always be enough. Relationship with God means that forgiveness is always there, waiting for you to return to the fold. Relationship with God means that eternal life has already been secured for you, that Jesus has already provided eternal life for all of us and nothing we do now or have ever done, or will ever do, will take it away.
As we bid goodbye to the season of Easter and prepare for the long ‘green season’ following the festival of Pentecost, let us examine Jesus’ final words in this section of the prayer “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.” What if we can take this blessing and keep it as ‘ours’ for the entire season of Pentecost. It sums up what Pentecost is supposed to be for us as disciples of Christ. Jesus is no longer in the world, the incarnation is over, Jesus is resurrected, and he has ascended to the Father from where he came. But we are still here, we are in the world, and Jesus’ work is now in our hands, and he is relying on us to be ‘his feet’ and ‘his presence’ in the world.
What if we imagined that the resurrection is not the end of the Gospel but the beginning. What if we saw the promises of the resurrection as being, in part, ours to fulfil. What does living ‘in the way of Christ’ mean for how I live the rest of my life. How am I going to live a life of discipleship, witness, and love, between Pentecost and Advent, trusting that Jesus meant those words “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father”. We are in the world, the world that God loves. Live your life in God and God will live in you and through you.