Sermon: “Jesus’ Farewell Prayer”

John 17: 6-19

The evaluation and explanation of the deep messages in the gospel of John is a complex undertaking. It is likely John’s gospel was three or four generations past the time of Jesus. Our reading and engaging is not that different from the community John served way back then. We are continually working to stay close to Jesus and to the gospel teachings; to be the followers Jesus prays for in this passage, often called “The Farewell Discourse.” It is Jesus’ final, loving, emotional prayer to God, for the disciples and for Christians just like us.

We Christians believe that Jesus is the Incarnation of God. When we see Jesus in word and prayer, we see the full, living image of God, our Creator. In the passion of Jesus we not only observe the events, we are with Him all the way. In these trials, we come closer and closer to knowing God. Living with Jesus along the way, we not only experience the Love of Jesus, but we also begin to know who God really is and how we are to be with God, our Creator. This is not a simple process; for some of us it takes a lifetime. Some of us go in and out of clarity about knowing God, and we can always use some reinforcing affirmation about just who God is, and where we stand with God. Jesus is the one who clarifies.

By the time we get to this last chapter of the gospel of John, the fourth Gospel, we share in remarkable revelations from Jesus about God. These words are not parables or metaphors. This prayer is the last will and testament of the living Jesus. It is beautiful and touching.

Jesus is the full revelation of God, and He explains in patient details the very heart of God. Jesus “made known” (v6) God to us. Jesus is the Son of the Father – who better to describe and reveal the Creator?  As Jesus “made known” God to us, he reveals the very essence of God. The disciples may not be on top of everything, but they do know God, through Jesus. We sometimes hear arrogant criticisms of those who profess faith in God. There are those who consider us Christians duped to believe that a Jew from Nazareth is the dwelling place of the fullness, the image, and the power of God. How could this man be the same God of the Jews in the Hebrew Bible, the poetic psalms, and now be the source of teachings of the Incarnated God of all? In spite of the critics, we believe that there is no greater knowledge of God than in Jesus Christ, who lived and died among us and, in this scripture, is about to return to the Father.

In some intellectual circles, namely seminaries and universities, there is a new concept called Negative Theology. It is somewhat glib in its premise that we can easily define not what God is, but what God is not. Some say God is neither male nor female, nor seeable nor explainable. God is not a creature or a thing. While I can appreciate this theory, I also cannot live in faith this way. What I need is a Positive Theology of God. I need to know who God is, not who God is not.  I get this through Jesus.  This gospel of John, this final prayer of Jesus tells us much of what we need to know about God to be on our journey. From this point forward, we are somewhat on our own. We are subject to our own experience of and relationship with God. We can be swayed off course. This final prayer of Jesus is the texture of God’s Presence defined by the one who knows God and makes Him known to us. It is the grounding of our faith in God and Jesus Christ.

It seems reasonable to think that when we walk down some road, real or imagined, and we lose our way, we stumble and fall, we are not likely to call out, to reach for some nameless, faceless, essence of “nothing” to help us regain our footing. We do not typically call out for a feeling or an intellectual premise when we are struggling.  What we need is a tangible living God in Jesus Christ.  What we don’t need is an all-inclusive generality.  My words are not intended to offend someone’s inclination to be “spiritual and humanist” rather than declare themselves as followers of a powerless Jew from Nazareth who changed the world.  But Jesus turned the world upside down. At the beginning it wasn’t clear who Jesus really was.  He started slowly, revealing himself through actions. He changed water into wine, overturned the tables in the temple, healed the sick, the lame, and the lowly.  He’s still doing it.  And yet we sometimes still say to Him, like the disciples and doubters of His time, who are you? The gospel of John tells us Jesus is the vine, the door, the shepherd. Nice images, teaching metaphors, but not enough for Jesus. There is more He wants us to know. “The Father and I are one. If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”

I believe that when we look at Jesus, we see God. Jesus is not an almost God; He is God. Think about it for a minute.  Through the disciples, through Jesus’ real, documented life, we see God in Jesus. Hear these words of John’s once more:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That’s how John begins his gospel. That gets to the point directly, I submit. In the following chapters of John, all Jesus’ actions of Jesus take on new meaning because we know it is God in action, not a lowly Nazarene with no credentials.

William Willimon, United Methodist minister and former Dean of Duke University Chapel, asks a question and then declares an answer in light of John’s gospel. Question:  What is the definition of Christianity? Willimon says, “Christians are those who believe that in this Jew from Nazareth, his words, including the most outrageous and confusing of them, and his deeds, including some of the most offensive and incomprehensible of them, we have seen the fullness of God.” Then Willimon continues, “How do you know YOU are a Christian? You are,” he says, “if you are somebody seeking after, trying to figure out, seeking to imitate, falling in love with, and trying to look like this Jew from Nazareth who was one with the Father.” Sometimes, Jesus as the curious outrider is easier to get. Some say it is easier to stay with Jesus and his message when we don’t really know who He is or what he intends to do. Some Christians are far more comfortable with Jesus as an extraordinary historical figure. Once He reveals Himself as God Incarnate, we are called to go deeper, to profess our absolute Love and commitment to Him, as He has for us.

In today’s gospel we hear firsthand how Jesus prayed to God, and prayed for us. Can’t you just imagine Jesus in prayer? We can learn a lot about others when we hear them pray.  It almost seems surreal to hear these intimate words of Jesus; they are so real, so tender, so loving. This is the image of God offered to us. This is what I want to reach for when I stumble on the road. My faith and trust in God comes alive in these scriptures that lead us to a personal revelation of God in our lives. I need to know more of God through Jesus.

Henri Nouwen speaks of the freedom of Jesus as the animating spirit of the life of the Christian. Nouwen says, “Jesus was truly free. His freedom was rooted in his spiritual awareness that He was the Beloved Child of God. Jesus knew in the depth of his being that He belonged to God before he was born, that He was sent into the world to proclaim God’s Love, and that He would return to God after His mission was fulfilled.” Nouwen suggests that this knowledge gave Jesus the freedom to speak and act without having to please the world, and the power to respond to people’s pain with the healing love of God. So my friends, this is your release, your hall pass: you are not called to please the world. You and I are called to be:  “have the courage to be,” says Paul Tillich. We are called to be free in our trust in God and hope for the future. This is our gift from Jesus – just like the gift He received from God. We are free to be as much like Jesus as we pray and choose to be.

I love this image of hope offered by Emily Dickinson:

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune­­­-- without the words

And never stops at all,

And sweetest is the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could bash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asks a crumb of me.

So what is it about Christianity and Jesus Christ for us, His followers, all these years after Jesus’ Farewell Prayer?  Theologian N.T. Wright says that with Jesus, “God’s rescue mission has been put into effect once and for all. A great door has swung open into the cosmos that can never be shut. We are offered freedom: freedom to experience God’s rescue for ourselves, to go through the open door and explore the new world to which we have access through Jesus.”

In Jesus, heaven and earth have come together once and for all.  Now that’s Good News.