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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
“What do you know?” Those words can be an expression of surprise at something unexpected: “Well, what do you know?” Or, those words can be a greeting: “What do you know?” Eliciting responses such as, “Not much”, or “Just enough to get me to tomorrow”, or “Got thirty seconds? I’ll tell you everything.” The question is more “Whom do you know?” in today’s Gospel Reading, the beginning of Jesus’s so-called “HighPriestly Prayer”. As we heard, Jesus prayed that His Father would glorify Him, the Son, so that the Son might glorify the Father, specifically by giving eternal life to all whom the Father had given the Son. And, since eternal life is to know the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom the Father had sent, essentially, Jesus prays that we might know the only true God. Thus, our theme this morning is “Jesus prays that we might know the only true God.”
In the Church Year, today is the Seventh Sunday of Easter, which falls between the Ascension of Our Lord, which Pilgrim observed Thursday night, and Pentecost, which Pilgrim will observe next Sunday. But, in today’s Gospel Reading, we go back to the night when Jesus was betrayed and the Prayer that He prayed that night: first for Himself (John 17:1-5), second for His disciples (John 17:619), and third for those who would believe in Him through the disciples’ word (John 17:2026). The whole Prayer is divided into three parts that are distributed on this Sunday over the course of the three years of our Lectionary Series, though the Lectionary’s three parts (John 17:1-11, 11-19, 2026) do not quite correspond to the Prayer’s three “petitions”.
Of course, even though the Prayer’s first “petition” was for God the Father to glorify God the Son, that petition is not completely “selfish” of God the Son, for, as we heard, the purpose or result of God the Father’s glorifying God the Son would be God the Son’s glorifying God the Father, and all whom God the Father had given God the Son also would benefit. As Jesus said, the Father gave the Son authority over all flesh, specifically authority to give eternal life to all whom the Father had given Him, though arguably also authority to condemn to the torment of eternal death all those whom the Father had not given Him. Eternal life, Jesus said, is to know the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom the Father had sent.
Knowing the Lord was emphasized already in the Old Testament. For example, in today’s Introit (Psalm 100:1-5; antiphon: Psalm 101:1), we sang, “Know that the Lord, He is God! It is He Who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture”. But, earlier on the night when Jesus was betrayed, as we heard in the Gospel Reading two Sundays ago (John 14:1-14), Jesus made clear that His disciples did not really know Him, and so His disciples did not really know the Father. The Divinely-inspired evangelist St. John said in the so-called “Prologue” of his Gospel account that the True Light was in the world, and, the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him (John 1:10). Like the disciples, all sinful flesh, including us, does not know God the Father or God the Son by nature. That same sinful nature that keeps us from knowing God also leads us to sin in thought, word, and deed, and so we all deserve nothing but temporal death and eternal torment, unless the Holy Spirit calls and so enables us to repent: to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust God to forgive our sin, and to want to stop sinning. We do not know God by our own investigation, observation, or speculation (Bultmann, TDNT 1:711), but we know God the Father only by the revelation of God the Son (1 John 5:20) in the power of God the Holy Spirit.
In today’s Gospel Reading, we hear Jesus speak of the essential unity of the three Blessed Persons of the one Holy Trinity, and we hear Jesus speak of His own existence as the Son of God before the world existed. The glory that the Son of God had before the world existed belongs to Jesus by virtue of His Divine nature, and, because of the personal union of the Divine and human natures in the man Jesus, that glory of the Divine nature is ascribed and communicated to His human nature. Somewhat counterintuitively, in St. John’s Gospel account, Jesus’s glorification is centered on His death on the cross for the sins of the world (John 12:2733), including your sins and my sins. Though in today’s Gospel Reading Jesus speaks as if He had already finished the work that the Father gave Him to do, His work of redeeming us was finished on the cross (John 19:28). On the cross, out of God’s great love for even the fallen world, Jesus died for us, in our place, the death that we deserve. When we know God by recognizing and personally receiving His love through faith in Jesus (confer Bultmann, TDNT 1:712), then God forgives us our sinful nature and all our actual sin, whatever our sin might be. Then we have eternal life, just as Jesus rose from the dead, even if we do not yet fully experience that eternal life.
Jesus gives us that eternal life as He gives us the Holy Spirit, through the preaching of His Gospel and the handing-out of His Sacraments, for which reason He instituted the Office of the Keys. In today’s First Reading (Acts 1:12-26), you heard how important it was to fill Judas’s office with Matthias! The apostles’ later successors, the pastors of our time, read and preach the Gospel to groups such as this and apply the Gospel to individuals with water in Holy Baptism, with touch in Holy Absolution, and with the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar that are the Body of Christ given for us and the Blood of Christ shed for us. Thus they give us the Holy Spirit and life and assure us that we who repent are those whom the Father gave the Son.
Earlier in his Gospel account, St. John records Jesus’s saying that all whom the Father gives to Jesus will come to Him, and whoever comes to Jesus He will never cast out (John 6:37). As Jesus first comes to us in His Word and Sacraments, we who repent in turn come to Jesus by receiving His Word and Sacraments. By these Means of Grace, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit dwell in us, and so we dwell in them and in one another. We have an “organic” unity, and differences between us are not removed but are transcended (Stauffer, TDNT 2:440). Like the “one accord” of today’s First Reading, there is unity in heart and mind and will (Morris, ad loc John 17:6-19, p.644), and we avoid any teaching or practice contrary to God’s Word that would disrupt that unity (Lenski, ad loc John 17:11, p.1138). The Triune God works in us love of Him and love of one another, our obeying His Commandments (confer Bultmann, TDNT 1:712), and, when we fail to obey them, with daily repentance, we live in both His forgiveness of sins and the forgiveness of sins that we in turn extend to one another. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Peter 4:12-19; 5:6-11), we are not surprised by fiery trials that test us, but we rejoice and glorify God in His Name for which we suffer, and we entrust our souls to our faithful Creator, Who at the proper time will exalt us.
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus prayed essentially that we might know the only true God. Now ascended into heaven and seated at the right hand of God, Jesus intercedes for us (Romans 8:34). So, still “Jesus prays that we might know the only true God”. By such knowledge, we have eternal life. Maybe, when someone asks us “What do you know?”, we should answer: “I know the only true God, and so I have eternal life.”
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +