Jesus prays for unity John 17:1-11

John 17:1-11 Gospel reading for Sunday June 5th

From John 14 we jump over three chapters this week to find Jesus still delivering his lengthy farewell message to His disciples. Therefore in order to fully grasp the many dimensions of what Jesus is saying, a much deeper and broader study is required beyond this small section of 11 verses, something that I'm not going to attempt here. It is however important to note the circumstances. Jesus is praying to God the Father with the disciples listening in ... and the THEY THEM and THOSE Jesus refers to repeatedly are the disciples.

So for this week's reflections ... just two points

1. At first impressions, something weird sticks out in verse 9 which I feel deserves comment. Superficially it may seem that Jesus only prays for his disciples and for all believers ... but what of the rest of the world? Does He not care about them? John the gospel writer is typically cryptic and it is easy to be thrown off track if we don't carefully take into account the specific context of the passage. Needless to say it is clearly not valid to make the implication that Jesus only prays for believers. (Cross-check with Matthew 5:44).
2. One of the profound insights of this passage is revealed in the final phrase of verse 11, which turns out to be a magnificent prayer for unity!

"...so that they may be one as we are one"

Jesus is praying for His disciples to be as one, that they be unified. But this is no ordinary unity. It is unity as defined by the unity of Father and Son. This surely reassures us as we strive for unity across nations, within our country, between religious denominations, in society generally and certainly within our school settings. Jesus prays that we will be one with those around us with the same degree of one-ness that is enjoyed and revealed by Him with God the Father! If that is a prayer that is continually being prayed behind the scenes for us, this surely gives us great cause for optimism!

Note: If we read on in John 17, we come to the section where Jesus very clearly prays for us. See Gospel Reflections 2010 Jesus prays for us too

Nev