9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.
13 "I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
Dig Deeper
In just a very little while now, my wife and I will be leaving the United States for a nearly three week trip to South Africa. South Africa is truly one of the most beautiful places I have been to in my life, if not the hands down most beautiful. We went there last August and absolutely fell in love with the place. Not just the sites and the country itself, but even more importantly the people. We spent enough time there that we felt like we genuinely got to know the people there. We care about them, miss them, and look forward to seeing them again soon. Yet with all of that, going to see them and be with them is a bit of a struggle and we’re torn a bit (although we’re definitely still going) because we are leaving our sons behind. They will not be making this trip and the thought of leaving them for nearly three weeks is challenging. While we are gone, we plan to leave them with some great friends of ours who have graciously agreed to stay in our house and take care of the boys. They will watch them them for half of the trip and then my parents will come and get the boys and keep them for the other half. When we leave, though, you can believe that we will leave lots of lists and instructions and ask them to take the very best care of our sons as they possibly can. This doesn’t signal a lack of trust in our friends or my parents, just the opposite. We wouldn’t be leaving if we didn’t trust them. Rather, what it does demonstrate is how much we love our boys. It shows that even though we love going to Africa and greatly look forward to seeing our friends there, and we know that we have been called by God to go, nothing can overwhelm the love that we have for our boys. When we are gone, we want to make sure to the very best of our ability that they are cared for and watched over as best as is humanly possible.
As we have seen over the last several chapters of John, Jesus is about to leave his disciples. Up to this point, he has watched over them, cared for them, and nurtured them. But now is the time to go. Jesus knows that this departure will be the cause of great anguish for him and the disciples for a time, but that grief will soon turn to joy as they will see him again. After that, though, he is leaving them physically for good. He is going to return to the Father, yet he loves them very much. Despite all that, he knows he has to leave and in his absence, because he loves them so much, he wants them to be taken care of as much as is possible. It’s not that Jesus doesn’t trust the Father, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. It’s just that he loves his disciples so very much. He’s going to leave them and he wants them watched over. That’s, in its essence, what this prayer is all about.
Jesus’ prayer turns to the real subject of his prayer, the disciples that he is leaving behind. He will eventually pray for those disciples that will come later on, but right now he puts his attention on those that have walked with him and that he is about to leave. He prays for them not the world. That is not to say that Jesus never prays for the world, but they are not the subject of this prayer of preservation and protection. Jesus loves the world (Jn. 3:16), taught his disciples to pray for them (Matt. 5:44), and prayed for the world himself (Luke 23:34), but his prayer here is that the world will converted through the protected mission of his followers. True prayer for the world can only be that they come to the life of Christ and cease to be the world. Any prayer for the world other than that is largely unfruitful. The world does not need preservation or protection from itself, rather they need conversion, but Jesus’ disciples will need protection after he is gone.
Jesus declares in his prayer a rather bold statement concerning the Father as he appeals to the Father to preserve those that He has given him. All I have, says Jesus, is yours, and all you have is mine. Saying that everything he had was the Father’s is not that remarkable of statement only insomuch as it is completely true in the case of Jesus rather than an ideal. What is remarkable is that Jesus says that all that is the Father’s is his. No one else could presume to make such a statement except Jesus. What belongs to the Father, belongs to him, including his disciples. Jesus’ disciples didn’t have to hope that the Father would continue to watch over them once Jesus had left. They actually belonged to the Father. They would be protected in the very name, the very life that God had given to his eternal son. They would be able to enter into that life and so be preserved in the world even though they would remain in the world. Jesus had protected them through the power and authority of his life while he was with them and the only exception to that was Judas. That, as Jesus is careful to point out, was not because Jesus was careless or incapable of doing so. The Father knew that the one would betray Jesus. He was doomed to destruction, which doesn’t mean that this was a fate that Judas had from which he could not escape, rather it means that his character was as such and he chose such a path that doomed him to reject God’s will. Scripture had foretold that, so they need not question God’s provision or power. He is, after all, the Holy Father, stressing both His immutable nature, His holiness, as well as his tender provision as the Father.
Jesus’ time had come and he would soon be returning to the glory of the Father’s presence. As he continues his prayer, Jesus reveals that part of the purpose of his prayer and all of his words to his disciples during his farewell discourse have been for the benefit of the disciples. He wanted to assure them both in the present and in the future when he is gone. Everything that Jesus did for his disciples and everything he does for us, we can rest assured, is for our benefit that we may have the full measure of his joy within us. In Jewish thought, complete joy would only come in the age to come, so Jesus says no small thing here. His words, prayers, and subsequent actions will allow them and us to enjoy in the life of God’s age to come now through the life of Christ.
If we remember that John, in using the term "logos", or "word," was likely appealing to both the Old Testament concept of the Word of God that proceeded from God and carried out His will, and the Greek logos, the ordering principle of the Universe. Jesus has surely given his disciples that word, that logos, and because of it the world has hated, and will continue to hate them, just as it has hated him, and by implication, hated the Father. The fact that any disciple of Jesus must come to terms with is that we will be in the world and the world’s values will always reject the values of Christ. Jesus didn’t pray that they be taken out of the world, that would be contrary to the whole point of creating communities of faith in the life of Christ. His prayer is that they be protected from falling prey to the evil one. The values of the life of Christ simply do not and never will match with the world, so Jesus’ disciples will never be part of the world’s system any more than he is.
This is such an instructive point for the Christian church today. Everywhere we turn in American Christianity, we see so-called Gospel appeals that are designed to appeal to the world through the values of the world. We’ll pull them in, so goes this line of thinking, with a series or an approach that is built on worldly ideals and values but that has a veneer, perhaps of Christian Gospel on it. The world’s values will never match with the values of Christ and Christians need to stop trying. Instead, we must realize that our call is to call the world out of the world. We are to be in the world but not of the world so that we can help the world to stop being the world. We must not give into the temptation to become like the world and think that this will somehow attract them to the Gospel.
The people of God are sanctified by the the truth, as Jesus prayed that we would be. To sanctify something is to cleanse it and set it apart for holiness. Jesus is about to set himself apart by going to the Cross, the very means that will enable those who enter his life to be set apart as God’s people. We are sanctified and set apart by the logos, which is truth. God’s people don’t need to take on the values of the world to win the world. We are to be set apart. We may need to act in such a way as to remove any barriers to people hearing the Gospel (which is what Paul was talking about in 1 Cor. 9:20) but that is a far cry from the attempts many Christian groups have made recently to become like the world or be perceived in a positive light by the world.
Jesus knows that his disciples have been set apart so that their work might closely parallel his. Just as he was sanctified and set apart and sent into the world (Jn. 10:36) by the Father, so Jesus now sanctifies them and sends them into the world The whole purpose of this mission is that they might change the world rather than having the world determine who they are going to be. Jesus will die so that his followers might be sanctified and sent not sullied and absorbed.
Devotional Thought
Jesus says that he sanctified himself for his disciples so that they may be sent into the world for the sake of the world. Have you ever thought of it in those terms? Jesus died for us, sanctifying himself, so that we might be set apart for God’s purposes and sent into the world. Do you go about doing that mission or do you spend more time shrinking back from it and seeking your own will.
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