The Father and the Son:
I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. (John 17:4)
It’s prayer time usually meant heads bowed, eyes closed and solemn, somber tones. When Jesus communicates with His Father, His head is up, His eyes are open and He communes as Son to the Father. From the previous intimate tones with His disciples, so He engages with His Father with that degree of intimacy. The unity of agreement and the reciprocating glory is a breathtaking expression of that which the Son wants His disciples to witness and then experience.
The Father, the Son and His initial disciples:
My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. (John 17:16, 18)
As Jesus finishes His mission, so He enables and commissions those that have been with Him to carry on the story. Some behave as though we must separate ourselves from the world existing in a virtual bubble away from the world. Jesus, however, asks for our protection while we’re in the world. As He was protected so that He could complete His mission in the world, so that sense of unity in protection is extended so that the mission through the disciples can also be complete.
The Father, the Son, the initial disciples and all subsequent disciples:
My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. (John 17:20, 21)
And the beat goes on. The ripple effect of the unity of the Father and Son is felt in a growing in knowing of the initial disciples. This however reverberates through the generations of those who hear and then also grow in knowing Him. So even today, the more we know and grow, the more intimate with Him we become. The more intimate in Him we become the more we should be drawn to each other in growing and knowing. That witness is the powerful expression of the reality of the mission of Christ on the earth.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
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