A, Easter 7 - John 17:2-3 "In the know"

You are on death row; the night before you are killed. You stand innocent before God but people have conspired against you and you know the outcome will end in your death. Your honour will be stripped from you, your name will be dragged through the mud, you will be humiliated by the sheer hypocrisy and fabrication of your accusers’ allegations. So what would you do?

Then there is the pain. It is already present since you know what is going to happen to you. You know that before you are killed they are going to toy with you, making the pain linger as you languish. And when you are killed you’re going to get the death set aside for the most abhorrent and evil of crimes. But you are innocent.

You are going to be killed in front of everyone; your enemies, the church, the government, and you family and friends. They will know and witness your every convulsion as you slowly suffocate on your own blood in pain so intense that immediate death would be merciful. Knowing all this, what would you do, the night before your death?

Knowing all this, Jesus prayed! We might pray too! But what would we pray for? A stay of execution, at the eleventh hour, perhaps! Some earth-shattering anomaly sent to distract the accusers so you might escape and get out of Dodge. You might seek to end it all before the end suffering even begins. Or perhaps you might be bitterly angry at everyone else at having been put in this situation — angry at God, at your cowardly friends, at the nonsensical common sense of the masses, or even angry with yourself that you trusted anyone but yourself.

However, in Jesus’ high-priestly prayer in John chapter 17 he does something completely different. His Heavenly Father sent him to do his work; he did it well—in fact—perfectly. And now having done all he was required to do without question, he faced death. But even so, with the end approaching just hours away, he prayed to be glorified so that the Father might be glorified.

I’m sure all of us would see glorification, in this situation, to come as exoneration, reinstatement of our rights and honour, or retribution against those who falsely accused us. But Jesus, who has been given all authority, from God, glorifies God by “giving”. Jesus has already given himself in so many ways, faithfully for all those around him, and now he gives even more.

All authority, all power, all judgement, all discernment, all wisdom, and all of creation are his, yet he gives up all of this, in full submission to his Father in heaven. But that’s not all; he gives up his own life as well. What’s more he gives it up for you!

Hear Jesus pray to God concerning himself… For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. (John 17:2-3)

Jesus’ gift to you is this: He gives life to us in exchange for his life sacrificed. He gives eternal life, he gives you the ability to know God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus knew, Jesus knows, and now through him we too can know. And by knowing, Jesus tells us we bring glory to God. And because you bear the life of Christ, you are indeed children in the Father’s eyes. He sees you as he sees his Son, and the Son sees you as brothers and sisters. In fact we have been made one with the Triune God.

This is why Jesus prays to God concerning his disciples… All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one. (John 17:10-11)

So the question goes begging: Why does glory come to Jesus through the disciples? And how? Further more, how does this same glory come to Jesus because of you?

Let’s wind things back to where we first begun.

You are on death row. In fact every person living is dying. Death is inevitable for everyone. Everything you have will be stripped from you. Our reality is this: most of everything we have is nothing — but unfortunately, we try to cover ourselves with these things to give the impression we actually do have something.

Now as much as we try to drag our names out of the mud, honour ourselves, and humiliate all others through self-indulgent hypocrisy and fabricated allegations, we are still nearing death. No matter what we do we can’t avoid this reality. So what do you do, knowing you are on death row?

The temptation is to play the victim. But in fact you are neither a victim nor are you innocent. So what do you do, knowing that you are rightly in the face of death? We are called to repent and turn to the one who has been made known to us? He is Jesus and just as he prayed for us and all believers while he was on earth, he still continually intercedes for us before our Father in heaven.

So we are called to the one who has been made known to us. He is made known by the powerful work of the Holy Spirit? The Spirit reveals both our sin and guilt, but in knowing the truth about ourselves he shows us Jesus in his word. So we can know the forgiveness and love of God. And in knowing God we can know peace.

But in Jesus’ day when he was visually present in his person on earth, many knew him too. Judas did, so too did the Jews, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees. The Romans knew him, Pilate knew him, and many others did too. But that didn’t mean they followed him and were saved from eternal death. In fact, most of them probably knew Jesus very well, just as we know each other today. So what’s the difference?

We, who are on death row, are in the know! We know we deserve everything that should come to us. We know Jesus was born a baby in Bethlehem, we know he was a man and lived and died, and rose again. But even greater than this we know he is master over our sin and our death. And since he is master over the things that once mastered us, we abide in repentance and he makes us known to his Father in heaven through the forgiveness of our sin.

We know and trust him at his written Word; we know and trust him in his Sacraments. We know and trust him for his forgiveness, we know and trust him for his peace, and we know and trust him for his life, given to us as eternal life. We know and trust we have been made one with God by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, through the counsel of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, we who are on death row, are not just in the know, but are known by God, and gathered by the Holy Spirit, into Christ and the victory of the cross. Trust and know you are known by God, one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, seen as sons through the Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.