Sermon Tone Analysis

!!! *THE LONGEST PRAYER *

*by Ray C. Stedman*

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The passage for our study today, John 17, is often referred to as the "Holy of Holies" of the New Testament.

This wonderful prayer of our Lord closes the Upper Room Discourse and precedes his agony in the shadows of Gethsemane, the betrayal by Judas the traitor, his arrest and the beginning of his trials.

I have called this "The Longest Prayer" for two reasons:

First, it is indeed the longest recorded prayer of our Lord.

In it we can discern the inner thoughts of his mind and learn much of his relationship with his Father.

But this prayer is also the longest in the scope of time that it covers.

It stretches across twenty centuries and includes us as well as the apostles.

John never forgot the scene in which this prayer was uttered.

Our Lord had left the Upper Room with his disciples and had passed through the vineyards that surrounded Jerusalem.

As he paused somewhere along that route, in all likelihood he picked up a vine and taught them, saying, "I am the vine and you are the branches."

Then in the vineyard or elsewhere along the way, in the bright Passover moonlight "he lifted up his face unto heaven," and prayed aloud in the hearing of the disciples.

I propose to take this prayer in but one message.

That is roughly akin to being handed a gallon bucket and being told to empty the Pacific Ocean in less than an hour!

While I regret that I cannot dwell on details, there is great value in seeing the full sweep of this prayer.

Our Lord prays essentially about three matters.

First, he prays for himself that he may be glorified, then he prays for the eleven apostles, that they may be protected and sanctified, and, finally, he prays for the whole church down through the centuries, that they all may be unified.

The first eight verses of the prayer constitute his prayer for himself:

{{{"

*When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee, since thou hast given him power over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom thou hast given him.

And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.

I glorified thee on earth, having accomplished the work which thou gavest me to do; and now, Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made.

I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world; thine they were, and thou gavest them to me, and they have kept thy word.

Now they know that everything that thou hast given me is from thee; for I have given them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from thee; and they have believed that thou didst send me." {John 17:1-8 RSV}*

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Twice Jesus asks to be glorified, in two different ways, and for two different reasons:

First, he asks to be glorified in and by means of the cross.

This is what he means by the words.

"The hour has come."

All through the gospel we have seen him moving toward this hour which he has long anticipated, the hour of crisis when he confronts, deliberately and personally, the massed powers of darkness.

Thus in the cross, with its agony, blood, grief and loneliness he is asking to be glorified.

It is not a selfish prayer because he immediately adds that by means of his death he will glorify the Father.

We must understand what this term "glorified" means.

How is someone "glorified"?

The word means to make manifest hidden values, hidden riches.

The sun is a glory because the gases that make it up are being consumed and manifested in brilliant light.

Jesus himself is glorified that way.

John began his gospel by saying, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, ... and we beheld his glory," {John 1:14a, 1:14b RSV}.

What glory?

"Full of grace and truth," {John 1:14b RSV}.

All his inner qualities of grace and truth became visible.

Here our Lord is praying that by means of the cross something that is hidden to the world will be manifested.

We do not have to guess what that is because he tells us.

It is, first, that God has given him "power over all flesh," i.e., he has Lordship, sovereignty, the right to rule over all the nations of the earth.

This will come by means of the cross.

How truly this is confirmed by the epistles.

In Philippians, Paul writes that because Jesus became obedient unto death, God the Father "highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, ... and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father," {cf, Phil 2:9-11 RSV}.

Thus by means of that exaltation following the cross, God the Father is glorified.

At the close of the gospel of Matthew our Lord stands in resurrection glory beside the Sea of Galilee and says to his disciples.

"All power in heaven and on earth is given unto me," {cf, Matt 28:18}.

What an encouraging word for all believers!

The One we follow holds in his hands the reins of the nations and all the forces at work on the earth even the powers of darkness.

In Colossians, the apostle says that on the cross Jesus "disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example or them, triumphing over them in it," {cf, Col 2:15 RSV}, i.e., in the cross.

So this prayer has been fully answered.

In the cross Jesus was glorified and his Lordship was revealed.

But more than that, our Lord also states that through the cross he will gain the right to give eternal life to all whom the Father brings to him.

He defines eternal life as "knowing God."

That is really living.

Coming to know the Father and Jesus will fill life to the full.

It is a quality of life that lasts forever.

That is what Jesus means.

Through my own lifetime I have come to learn that God is the most exciting Being there is.

It is the world that is filled with boredom, loneliness, and misery.

All its offers of adventure and allurement crumble to dust when you try to grasp them.

But when you walk with God, every day is an adventure.

He is innovative, imaginative, creative.

That is the eternal life for which everyone longs deep in his heart.

Jesus says that is what he gives -- his redemptive life -- to those who come to him.

Thus the cross reveals both his Lordship and his Saviorhood.

He is the source of life to all who come to him.

No wonder we sing in one of the great hymns,

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In the cross of Christ I glory, \\ Towering o'er the wrecks of time; \\ All the light of sacred story \\ Gathers round its head sublime.

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That is Jesus' first reason for asking to be glorified -- not only because it will bring glory to the Father, but, as he goes on to say, it will complete his work on earth: All that he has done finds its completion in the cross.

Thus he says, "I glorified thee on earth," having accomplished the work which he now sees as completed, anticipating the cross, "the work which thou gavest me to do."

This death he awaits is the capstone of that work.

Then Jesus prays to be glorified by returning to heaven: "And now, Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made."

Surely this is his creative glory.

Before he came to earth he was not the Redeemer, he was the Creator, the One behind the mysteries of nature, the One who invented all the marvels of the universe.

Several passages in Hebrews and Colossians make that declaration.

Now he is to return to that glory so, as Hebrews tells us, he now "upholds all things by the word of his power," {cf, Heb 1:3 KJV}.

We sing of this in another hymn.

{{{"

Fairest Lord Jesus.

\\ Ruler of all nature.

\\ O Thou of God and man, the Son.

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He asks now to take up again the manifestation of his creative glory, because his redemptive work is finished.

He summarizes it in Verses 6, 7 and 8: "I have given thy name to the men whom thou gavest me" and "I have given your words to the men whom thou gavest me, and they have received them and know that I came from thee and have believed that thou didst send me."

That work is now concluded, so he prays that he may he permitted to resume the glory which he had before.

Verses 9-19 constitute the beautiful prayer of our Lord for these eleven men.

It divides into three sections.

First, he prays for them because they belong to him: then he prays that they may be kept from the enemy, from the world and the devil; and finally he prays that they may be sanctified.

It opens with words of tender concern:

{{{"

*"I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world but for those whom thou hast given me, for they are thine; all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them.

And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to thee." {John 17:8-11a RSV}*

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Jesus gives two reasons for this prayer.

First, because these disciples are his: they are a gift from the Father.

He has spent 3-1~/2 years with them.

He knows them intimately and they are very precious to him.

That is how we, too, pray.

We pray first for those we love.

Perhaps you have heard the minimal prayer of the man who said he prayed for his wife, and himself, his son John and his wife -- "us four and no more."

Some of us, perhaps, may pray that way.