John 17.6-20 Sunday 24th May 09 Jesus prays for his disciples.
or Darth Vader faces another choice!
At this time in the Gospel story, Jesus has eaten his final Passover meal. Judas has left the group. Jesus with his remaining disciples has walked down the Kidron Valley near Jerusalem. Where Jesus has given them further instructions and teaching.
Now Jesus looks up to heaven in their presence, and starts to talk, to pray out loud to God. He prays for his disciples there with him, but as he explains in verse 20 "I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me because of their testimony.
In other words this prayer is for every man and woman that believes and belongs to Jesus. God has created everyone in the world, but only those who trust and accept Jesus word’s as truth belong to Him. This prayer is for them alone.
One thing that strikes me about this prayer is that it is an unusually long, public prayer for Jesus. For lengthy prayers, Jesus usually went off to a private place to pray. His public prayers tend to be quite short.
Notice again he is NOT praying for everyone. He is just praying for those God has given him. Which means he is praying for Me and every Christian.
But he is not praying for people who once made a profession of faith, but have lived life their own way ever since.
Remember Jesus parable of the seed that fell on thorny ground. The seed died and some people’s faith dies.
John the writer of today’s passage tells us in his book Revelation, that Jesus said to the church in Smyrna
"Understand what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Whoever is victorious will not be hurt by the second death. (Revelation 2:11 NLT)
In other words only those people who stay under God’s protection and so win their fight with evil will gain eternal life.
But that doesn’t remove the fact that Jesus is praying a specific prayer for me and everyone who loves Him. Even though we don’t feel worthy. Does that give you a feeling of joy and peace?
Jesus prays, I'm not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one.” OK we will still have problems in this world. But as long as we listen to and trust God, Jesus asks the Father to keep us safe from the devil. It may be a bumpy ride, but the finish is good.
May be you read the first verse, John 17.6, where Jesus says, “They have kept your word.’, and think, “I’m not sure that I have always.” Or honestly think, “I haven’t”. Perhaps you can think of times when you thought you were doing the right thing. It’s just that now, you know, you weren’t.
Well remember the disciple, Peter, who thought it right to tell Jesus not to be so silly, as to talk about dying? Jesus replied, Mark 8.33 "Get away from me, Satan! You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God's."
Peter really got that wrong, to provoke such a reaction from Jesus. We are not told when Peter repented but he obviously did, and Jesus therefore kept no record of Peter’s blunder. Peter wanted to be like Jesus. He wanted people to know what Jesus was like, by what he was like.
Jesus had previously said to him in
Matthew 16:18 Now I say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.
Peter became that rock.
We will all continue to make mistakes, which is why Jesus prays for us in verse 17, “Make them pure and holy by teaching them your words of truth”.
Many people would say, they want to be pure and holy, but some may add, as long as it doesn’t hurt, or cost too much, getting holy. Holy means set apart for God. Separated from anything sinful, crude or immoral. That includes what can be seen on a screen.
God won’t force us to be holy, to live by his teaching. If we are angry with someone or something that hurt us, he won’t force us to let go of the anger, and forgive. But to regain peace we must listen to God and accept his words of truth.
Paul says in Hebrews 12.14
Try to live in peace with everyone, and seek to live a clean and holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14 NLT)
If we don’t listen and act on God’s teaching then we won’t become more and more like him. Because we won’t be giving ourselves entirely to Jesus and so to God.
But, we don’t change by just our own effort and decision. We have to, willingly let God make us pure and holy by his teaching.
How does God teach us? Jesus taught by example and words. We can learn from his example and words today. We are also learning all the time from other people’s example both real and fictional on the TV, in newspapers and elsewhere. But what we learn isn’t always good for us.
The most comfortable way to learn from God is through the Bible, bible notes, other Christian books, and genuine guidance from the Holy Spirit. The alternative is through experience which can be very unpleasant.
Someone once said to me, “I need more patience, but I daren’t pray for ‘patience’ because God will put me in situations where I need more patience”. I can see their logic, we learn by doing.
God knows best. Unfortunately people believe their feelings, at a particular moment, on any matter are the truth. Think about it, if you are angry about something then, at that time you ‘know’ that is the truth. You know you are right because it feels right.
Hopefully most people here will agree, that sometimes they have discovered they were wrong. You didn’t have all the facts at the time and mistakenly came to what you believed was truth.
People can be certain God has got it wrong. So as they don’t act on God’s advice, he has to teach them through their experience.
Think about the Israelites who asked God to get them out of their suffering in Egypt. They grumbled for years and so Moses was sent to lead them to the Promised Land.
They saw the Promised Land but spent 40 years grumbling at Moses, and God, for taking them away from Egypt.
If they had trusted God, and obeyed him that journey would have taken only eleven days. The major sin that kept them in the wilderness for forty years was their attitude towards God. They didn’t trust him. They grumbled about him and they disobeyed him.
In the reading today Jesus mentions, but not by name, one person who he says is, “headed for destruction, as the Scriptures foretold.”
The scripture he is probably thinking about is Psalm 41:9 which says “Even my best friend, the one I trusted completely, the one who shared my food, has turned against me.”
I suspect the eleven disciples with Jesus, at the time, just found that another puzzling thing Jesus was saying, and hoped it wasn’t them. We know now he was thinking of Judas Iscariot.
But before we think about Judas and his fate let’s think about a person from fiction Anakin Skywalker.
Anakin is a hero in the Star Wars movies for those who don’t know who he is.
He was a slave boy who became a hero, a celebrity. He was recognised as a wise and good person who had been endowered with the powers of a Jedi Knight.
The people in the Stars Wars stories believe in some sort of spiritual, mystic religion called “The Force”. Anakin, at the time, was on the ‘light side’ of this Force, that is the good side, and the Force was with him in the battle of the Clone Wars. He comes out the saviour, the hero.
In this make believe religion if a person attains the state of unconditional compassion they will have discovered the path to immortality. Jedi knights immortalised in this way can appear to mortals as a hologram or ghost.
Anakin triumphant from the war he returns to his mother and finds she has been seriously beaten and she dies in his arms. He assumes that her murder is the act of a Tusken Raider tribe that is in the vicinity. In anger this young Jedi goes on a murderous rampage, killing all the men, women, and children of the tribe. He probably thought initially this was a right action. To take revenge.
It seems in this fictitious religion that once you have turned to the dark side of the force there isn’t usually any going back. Now on the dark side he murders a group of Jedi knights, and is horribly mutilated in the process. The evil Emperor pieces Anakin’s body back together with a few metal additions. Now Anakkin looks like Count Dracula in a German Storm trooper costume, and has the new name of Darth Vader.
Why did this man who was a good honest, loving man, who fought for good, turn to evil? He is a fictional character but his emotions, thoughts, and acts are all based on all humanities emotions, thoughts and acts. Including yours and mine.
In Star Wars Episode VI: ‘Return of the Jedi’ Darth Vader faces another choice. He has a son, Luke Skywaker who has chosen the ‘light side’ of the force and won’t join his father in his evil ways.
Anakin realises what a mistake he has made and chooses to fight evil alongside his son. Then to save his son’s life, he throws the evil Emperor Palpatine down a shaft. Unfortunately he is mortally wounded in the process.
Anakin has repented and returned again to the ‘light side’ and shown unconditional compassion. He appears to his son, Luke who then has the assurance of knowing his father is fully restored.
We all like a happy ending to a story don’t we. So why is it so many people mess up their own life story?
What about Judas Iscariot. Is there a happy ending to his story? Was he forgiven? In Matthew 27:3-5 it says -
When Judas, who had betrayed him [Jesus], realized that Jesus had been condemned to die, he was filled with remorse. So he took the thirty pieces of silver back to the leading priests and other leaders.
"I have sinned," he declared, "for I have betrayed an innocent man." "What do we care?" they retorted. "That's your problem."
Then Judas threw the money onto the floor of the Temple and went out and hanged himself. (Matthew 27:3-5 NLT)
Was this genuine repentance?
Let’s think about Judas.
Jesus had chosen Judas Iscariot as a close personal friend and disciple. Jesus the best friend anyone could ever have. To begin with it seems Judas must not only have had good intentions but must have loved Jesus, the other disciples and God with all his heart.
Remember Judas was sent out to preach the good news, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those having leprosy and to drive out demons. - Just like the other eleven disciples. There is no hint in the Bible that he was in any way, less willing than the others to follow Jesus at that time. Just like the young Anakin Skywalker.
So what went wrong?
Was he just simply impatient for Jesus’ Kingdom to start?
Did he really still expect Jesus to start a Revolution involving many battles?
May be when he first met Jesus, revolution would have been his expectation of the Messiah. That is how all kingdoms were won in the Old Testament.
Did Judas think he understood more than Jesus when it came to politics? Jesus was a great doctor and moral teacher. But did Judas believe Jesus was useless, when it came to taking over the country, with the mass support he obviously had?
When Jesus said to him, "Hurry. Do it now." (John 13:27 NLT)
Had Judas convinced himself that Jesus was actually agreeing reluctantly to his betrayal? To kick start the revolution Judas saw as an urgent necessity.
Judas over time had obviously re-started listening to, and acting on his own desires and imagined truth. He didn’t accept Jesus word on everything.
For instance, he was annoyed at Mary anointing Jesus feet with perfume. Actually I wouldn’t be surprised if other disciples weren’t thinking what he said,
"That perfume was worth a small fortune. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor."
Can you understand his sentiments?
But it was also a criticism of Jesus for accepting the anointing.
John 12:4-6 continues “Not that he [Judas] cared for the poor--he was a thief who was in charge of the disciples' funds, and he often took some for his own use. “
But basically Judas was like you and me. He convinced himself that he was right. Just like we all do. Including our MPs!
Judas betrayed Jesus for a small amount of cash.
May be a month’s wages. I really don’t think that was his motive. Or if it was, he certainly didn’t expect Jesus to be harmed through his actions.
Personally I believe Judas expected Jesus to seize control of the country through supernatural might.
Peter prepared to fight when Judas betrayed Jesus and chopped off the soldiers ear. May be Judas expected Jesus to heal injured disciples in battle and not temple soldiers.
But Jesus didn’t fight. Judas realised he had blown it. Jesus wasn’t going to miraculously take over the country. Judas went to pieces. What has he done? He got so distraught he totally lost the plot, and ended up hanging himself.
When Jesus said from the cross Father, “Forgive them; for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)
Was this also a prayer for Judas, who may have been in that crowd realising he had really got it wrong. This impatient, self deceived, sinner who questioned Jesus decisions and convinced himself wrong was right? Very much like us all really.
Jesus said, “How terrible it will be for my betrayer. Far better for him if he had never been born!" Mark 14.21
I expect Judas wished he had never been born, just before hanging himself.
The question is, will Judas have a new body and eternal life after Jesus returns? Many Christians would say “No”. But he did repent! Like the fictional Darth Vader?
Can you imagine when Jesus returns and all Christians get a new physical body? Everyone will be happy that they were ‘victorious’ as the NLT Bible puts it, but rather anxious about the judgment that is coming.
You see victorious Christians will all have eternal life but as Jesus says in Revelation 22:12
"I am coming soon, and my reward is with me, to repay all according to their deeds.”
Imagine Judas being in that crowd awaiting judgment, assuming his repentance was genuine. People are chatting, exchanging names. Imagine how ashamed he will feel, knowing everyone knows who he is.
Jesus prayer to the Father in today’s passage was not a general prayer for all. It was for those who have, or will, accept Gods words as truth. For those who repent of living outside of those words of truth.
Some of the time we don’t know what we are doing. We don’t see our mistakes. “Make them pure and holy by teaching them your words of truth” says Jesus. I hope we can all say Amen to that and also listen hard to God so that we don’t have to be taught through experience.
Amen