MAY 12, 2024   Seventh Sunday of Easter

Readings: Acts 1:15-17, 21-26; 1st John 5:9-13;  John 17:6-19

Let Us Pray

This is one powerful image in the Gospel this morning. It is also a hopeful image for those of us who are trying to be faithful to the gospel and serve the risen Christ, be the church, grasp on to, that we can be the church, in the world on this Ascension Sunday. Think about this for a moment, Jesus prays for us? Jesus prays for us that we might be faithful and well in a world. This world can be a frightening and a dangerous place for those called to live and proclaim the gospel. We see every day how dangerous it can be for those who follow Jesus doing good. The very people we are called to help can turn on us. Police officers deal with that daily and two have been shot this week. Yet Jesus prays for us.

Prior to his arrest, trial, and crucifixion, Jesus calls his disciples together and offers his final instructions concerning what is going to happen to him and how these events will shape and define their life together as the church. Following his instructions, with the disciples still gathered, Jesus prays to the Father for them. “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. . .. Holy Father protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one” (vv. 6, 11). This surely was not the first time Jesus had prayed for his disciples; it certainly isn’t the last. But here, in His most difficult hour, with everything that is about to happen, knowing what’s to come, with all His emotion, when the disciples should have been praying for him, Jesus looks up to heaven and prays for his disciples. Jesus holds the church up to God and asks for the continued well-being of those who have followed him. Given what is awaiting him, Jesus understands more than any other human on earth the reality of evil and the hostile nature of this world. He knows that his followers will face persecution, great peril, and death, because of their fidelity to His name. Nevertheless, just as God sent Jesus into the world, Jesus is sending his followers into the world to continue the work of the gospel, they need to be one, one group, one church, one with each other, one with Jesus and God, even as Jesus and God are one.

Now we should be clear, the point here is not some kind of sentimental unity and superficial lack of dissension within the church so that our lives can be free of conflict. No, the issue is the unified witness of the church to the gospel. In asking God to protect the disciples following his death and resurrection, Jesus is not promising the church a life free from hardship or suffering. Rather, Jesus demonstrates that although the world might hate us, the presence and power of the Holy Spirit and the church’s intimate relationship with God and with one another, through Jesus, will enable and empower us to persevere in faithfulness. Jesus prays for us so that we might be something that apart from him would be impossible: the church. Jesus also asks that his followers be sanctified in the truth for continued growth in godliness and righteousness. He prays that our lives might each day come to resemble his own life as He lived it on earth. He prays that our hearts might be one—one with him and one with each other. But also that we stay in love with God.

I heard about a gathering where Mother Teresa was the honored guest and speaker. As she reflected upon her ministry with the poor, she remarked that she often prayed to God that she would not lose her grip on the hand of Christ. How comforting to know that a saint of the faith needed to pray that prayer. Even more, it is comforting to know that Jesus prays that prayer on our behalf as he asks the Lord to keep us united in love with him.

John Wesley states that we are to stay in love with God as one of his three simple rules. One of the ways we can stay in love is to pray. Prayer is not something we do very often. I saw at the Wal-Mart Subway a couple with their three-year-old son. Before they ate, they had this little boy help in praying over their meal. How often do you pray over your meal, in public? It was a wonderful site to witness this event as a pastor. Their pastor was getting it right and making an influence over this couple. Then I started thinking about myself. I can improve on my own praying. Yes, I commune with God by talking to Him; Yes, I do listen for His answers. But I could be doing more to stay in love with God by praying over every meal, private and public, not just here in this building and church events, every meal, and at bedtime, pray without ceasing. In your own situation, examine how often do you pray? Where can you improve staying in love with God?

There are some who might argue; why should we pray if God is going to do His will, and that His will is perfect. That would lead to the perception that our prayers are useless. Remember that God relented His wrath at the prayers of Lot, He spared the people at Moses’ prayers, when the people of Ninevah repented as Jonah proclaimed and prayed to God, He heard their prayers. There are 19 places in Scripture where God changed His mind. It is important to converse with God in prayer because He will council us as well through prayer if we decide to listen for His answer.

In praying this prayer Jesus invites us to join him in the unique way of life we know as Christian discipleship. What might it mean for pastors to pray this prayer on behalf of those who have been entrusted to their care? Of course, we cannot pray the prayer as Jesus did because we are not to equate who we are and what we do with who he is and what he has done on behalf of the church and the world. But what if Jesus’ words and way with his disciples became the way we live among those whom we serve? What might our ministry look like if we spent as much time holding the church before the Lord and asking God to protect and sanctify this church as we do complain about what is wrong with the people, the denomination, we are supposed to love and serve? Jesus said that we could do greater things than He. Let me put another spin on this and not to focus all our attention on pastors, what if, as members of the body of Christ and fellow followers of Jesus, we devoted as much time and energy to praying for one another and asking God to support, protect, and sanctify one another as we do gossip, back-biting, or complaining? If the church commits itself, laity and clergy alike, not only to praying this prayer but to living it as well, we just might, by the grace of God, come to resemble the beloved community we have been called to be.

In the beginning of the book of Acts, Luke briefly recounts Judas’ role as one of the disciples, his subsequent betrayal of Jesus, and the role his betrayal played in the larger work of salvation. Luke does not attempt to explore the mindset of Judas, nor does he seek to resolve the problem of evil or how in the world one among the twelve would try to undermine the ministry of Jesus. Luke simply recalls Judas’ betrayal of Jesus and the void left by that betrayal in the early church. That void needed to be filled. The focus was on the void, not what happened or by whom.

With the scene set in this way Luke quickly moves the action forward to the matter at hand—the church’s proclamation of the Resurrection. Judas must be replaced by one who was a witness to Jesus’ ministry from the beginning, starting with Jesus’ baptism. We are told that the disciples then propose two individuals, Joseph and Matthias, as suitable replacements for Judas. The story is very matter of fact. The disciples pray, they cast lots, the lot falls on Matthias, and Matthias joins the other eleven. With the selection of Matthias, the “acts of the apostles” continue, and in the very next scene the Holy Spirit is poured out upon the church at Pentecost, Peter proclaims the gospel of the Resurrection, and the ministry of the gospel continues.

The writer of the epistle 1st John 5:9-13 lays out the argument that the most significant and powerful testimony to the truth of the gospel is the internal witness of the Spirit of God bearing witness to our spirit that Christ Jesus is the Son of God. The writer asserts that those who believe are the very ones who have experienced in the depth of their being, in their hearts, the testimony of God or the witness of God’s Spirit. This Spirit-initiated belief in Christ then shapes how the believer lives. Belief in Christ is more than intellectual assent to a set of propositional truths, and it cannot be reduced to mere feelings. Belief is both an affirmation and confession of the truth of the gospel of the Resurrection and an unwavering obedience and trust in the gospel of the risen Christ that shapes the life of the one who believes so that they continually grow to resemble the life of the One through whom they have come to believe.

As I pray and read Jesus’ words, I am mindful of the mystery and beauty of the Holy Trinity—one God in three persons. I am mindful of the holy communication, the intimate and eternal bond of love that exists among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In Christ we are invited to share in the relationship, the community, the fellowship, that exists at the very heart of God. In Christ we are caught up in the divine life. God has given us to the Son in and through the power of the Holy Spirit. We belong to Christ and thus we belong to one another. The church is an icon of the Trinity in as much as our relationships, our fellowship, our holy communication points to the life of the blessed and Holy Trinity. So, in praying this prayer Jesus says, “This is who you are.”

What good news—Jesus prays for us. Through his prayer, his unceasing intercession on our behalf, we become more than we would otherwise be. Through his prayer we become the church, God’s gift for the life of the world.

(Adapted from The Abingdon Preaching Annual 2012 and David Hockett)