The Gospel according to John (17:1-11)
Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said,
“Father, the hour has come.
Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,
just as you gave him authority over all people,
so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him.
Now this is eternal life,
that they should know you, the only true God,
and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
I glorified you on earth
by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do.
Now glorify me, Father, with you,
with the glory that I had with you before the world began.
“I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world.
They belonged to you, and you gave them to me,
and they have kept your word.
Now they know that everything you gave me is from you,
because the words you gave to me I have given to them,
and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you,
and they have believed that you sent me.
I pray for them.
I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me,
because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours
and everything of yours is mine,
and I have been glorified in them.
And now I will no longer be in the world,
but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.”
Reflection:
Today’s Gospel begins what some scholars call the “High Priestly Prayer” of Jesus on the night of the Last Supper. It gives us a glimpse into the relationship between the Father and the Son, and of the ardent prayer of the Son for those who would follow after. In essence, in this part of the prayer, Jesus is asking God the Father to glorify Jesus, so that His Apostles and disciples (those who heard this prayer on the part of Jesus) would be able to bear up under what was to come.
It’s actually a remarkable thing that Jesus did in this part of the prayer. He shows His closeness to the Father, and how He wants to make sure that those who were given Him by the Father know that, ultimately, they belong to God the Father. Those same words apply to all of us who consider ourselves to be followers of Jesus. To me, I am humbled that God would use such a flawed vessel, but the good news for me and for all of us is that it’s not about the quality of the vessel; it’s about the quality of the faith to believe that the Master sees something in the vessel that we don’t see in ourselves.
As we continue through this last week of the Easter season before Pentecost next Sunday, let us be thankful that Jesus made this prayer for each one of us, too. Let us ask Him each day to continue to see past the flaws in this “vessel” of ours, and to see us as worthy of what Jesus did for us all. Then, let us go out there and do our best to shine the light of that Gospel wherever we go.
Action for the Day:
Take time today and ask God to help you to be a vessel of hope, and if you don’t feel worthy to ask that, then you’re probably about to be greatly blessed and a great blessing, too.
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