“I’ll Be Praying For You”

Sermon-7 Easter B-May 20, 2012 “I’ll Be Praying For You”


The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."

When do you say these words “I’ll be praying for you”? Or when does someone say them to you? Most of the time when I hear these words spoken, it’s almost always because there is nothing more that we can do. And almost always “I’ll be praying for you” are the last words we say, when we can’t say anything more.

Today is the last Sunday of Easter. It’s been 6 weeks, 43 days since Easter Sunday. According to the Book of Acts, on the 40th day, last Thursday, Jesus went to heaven-and left his \ his friends. It was a sad moment for Jesus’ closest companions. In the book of Acts, you hear how the disciples decided that one of the first things that they had to do was build their number back up to 12, now that Judas was gone. And so they rolled dice to see who would get the “honor” of being a disciple-and ultimately, a martyr.

Make no mistake about it, when Jesus left his friends-they were alone, uncertain, and helpless. They didn’t know what to do, where to go, or who to be. I’ve been there. Several times in my life. It doesn’t matter how many times I have been rescued in the past-I always think, “oh no, I’m in it, now-what am I going to do?” And they must have felt that way, too.

In today’s gospel, Jesus is saying to his friends –“I’m praying for you. I told you before that chapters 13-17 in the gospel of John were known as “The long sermon”. The 17th chapter, today’s gospel, is called “The High Priestly Prayer” and it’s as if we are standing outside the window, eavesdropping, as Jesus prays to his Father. It is intimate, and intense. Basically, he’s asking God to take care of his friends, because he no longer can. Just like you or I would, if we thought we were leaving those we love. “”I’ll be praying for you.”

In 2000 an anonymous minister on the Desperate Preacher Site wrote this: “ This prayer that is prayed by Jesus to his Father on our behalf is one that can encourage believers today. We need the encouraging word today just as much as his first hearers needed them. ---The encouraging words that he says.--We belong to Christ thus we belong to God. Even though his immediate disciples were slow in understanding... now they understand and believe and He ask[s] God to protect them, to unite them, to sanctify them in the truth, and to place the joy that Jesus has in his heart into theirs. With all of God’s protection and Christ[‘s] joy then he commissions them and sends them into the world as God sent him. It is as if Christ words jump forward in time and he is speaking directly to us and is still praying that prayer even today.” LPinPA

Jesus asks God that his friends be one, unified, together, one body. He asks his father that they be full of joy. He pleads with God, that God protect them from all that is evil in the world, and finally, Jesus says, “ God, I am putting them out there-just as you put me out there.” How hard that had to be for Jesus. Praying for protection, joy, defending them from evil-all this sounds normal. All this is what you or I may write in a letter to friends before leaving them. But Jesus says to God I am sending them into the world-like you sent me. No wonder Jesus is closing with this fervent prayer for protection. His friends will be following him, going down the same path, expecting much the same consequences as he.

You understand, Jesus knows that his life is near an end. He knows that he will be confronting the powers the next day. He knows what may happen. And he asks that they, the people he loves, be sent to do the same thing he is being asked to do. Does this sound, like an odd final prayer to you? Can you imagine turning to your family, the people you are closest to in the world, and as you are dying, and praying that they go your same life, do the same things you did? Jesus wants them to follow him-even if it means all the way to death. We believe that 11 of the 12 disciples, including Matthias, all died martyr’s deaths.

This is Jesus closing prayer. Protect them, fill them with joy, give them power, and may they be sent into the world as I was. This last night of Jesus’ life, the disciples, these friends, had no idea what Jesus was talking about. They didn’t know that he would be dying the next day. They had to reconstruct this prayer years later after everything had happened. But that night of the Last Supper, they were at the end of 3 years of talking, teaching, walking together.

How often have you been lost? How often have you felt alone? Really alone? How often have you felt like you’re in a foreign land, friendless, and you were unsure which way to go? That’s the Sunday after the Ascension. Jesus is leaving his friends for the final time. First he died. Then came Easter, and his risen presence with his disciples for 40 days. And now they are alone. Again. And they have to face a future, without their companion, without their guide, without their friend. They must have felt even more abandoned than they had after the crucifixion.

To me, Ascension Sunday has always been one of the saddest days of the church year-like Palm Sunday and Good Friday-because it’s all about leaving, it’s all about good bye. We’ve all been there: uncertain, lost, alone. That’s what this Sunday, for me, has always been. The people/person we depended on are/is gone. For me, today has always been a time in between-a time of waiting. Jesus leaves but before he goes, he prays for his friends,

David Lose, the professor of preaching wrote this about today’s “high priestly prayer”: ask folks what they want Jesus to be praying for them right now. We don't get any sense that we'll be taken out of this world, or that all our problems will suddenly vanish, or that being a faithful Christian will be easy. But in light of that, what do we want Jesus to know, what do we need, what do we want Jesus to pray for [us]? Is it patience to be a better parent or friend? Is it encouragement amid a difficult chapter of our lives? Is it courage to stand up to a bully in the classroom or befriend a friendless kid at school? Is it joy in the face of the loss of a parent or the end of a relationship? Is it hope when we feel like we've got no options left? Is it companionship at a time of loneliness? Is it healing of body, mind, or spirit? Is it forgiveness...or the ability to forgive another? What? What do you want -- what do we want -- Jesus to know about and pray for?”

Today’s gospel is at the end of the Last Supper. Jesus is preparing to leave his friends. And so he prays. He says these last sad, intense, intimate words for his fiends. He prays for them that they follow him in the same journey that he has taken. He does not pray that they be safe and careful. He prays that his Father will give them what they need for their journey.

We, too have been scared-alone-fearful-uncertain. We, too, have been lost, unsure what direction to go. This is the last Sunday of the Easter season. We remember that Jesus left his friends on the 40th day, and we read aloud this prayer as we remember his last night on earth. It is a painful, difficult, heart wrenching prayer. It is Jesus saying, Father, I pray for my friends, I can’t help them any more. Father, give them what they need for their journey, keep them strong, help them to be one, and most of all Father, help them to know that when they pray-I am with them.

What do you want -- what do we want -- Jesus to know about and pray for, for us? Amen.

John 17:6-19

17:6 "I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

17:7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you;

17:8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.

17:9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.

17:10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.

17:11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

17:12 While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled.

17:13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.

17:14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.

17:15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.

17:16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.

17:17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

17:18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.

17:19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.