Reflective Bible Study

If you ever wondered if Jesus prayed for you personally, then you may be surprised to learn that He actually did. While John, who wrote down this prayer, didn’t have space or time to include your name in the millions of others, He includes Jesus’ words that ripple through history down to you and me.

In this prayer, Jesus broadens the focus away from just His immediate disciples by saying, “I am not praying just for these followers. I am also praying for everyone else who will have faith because of what my followers will say about me. I want all of them to be one with each other, just as I am one with you and you are one with me. I also want them to be one with us. Then the people of this world will believe that you sent me.” (v. 20-21)

Jesus clearly states that this prayer is not just for His followers present on the night of His betrayal; He extends this prayer to include everyone else who places their faith in Him because of what His followers say about Him. By extending His prayer in this way, Jesus includes the followers of followers of followers throughout history until He reaches into the 21st century where we are currently in history. Jesus’ prayer is a prayer for each of us as well.

And not only is this a prayer for mission and protection, this is a prayer requesting help and guidance towards unity.

When being assembled into a large group, probably one of the biggest challenges people face in the group is staying united. It seems that the larger a group gets, the easier it is for it to fragment or split apart. Sadly, this has happened a number of times in Christianity’s history. Unity, even while we are all unique and diverse, was supposed to be one of the ways we could show the world that God was with us.

But most of Christianity’s fragmentation happened before we were born. While I’m not here to justify or condemn what happened in history between Jesus’ prayer for unity and where we are today, I am able to adjust my perspective, attitude, and focus in my own life.

This portion of Jesus’ prayer is a call to stay connected with Him, to connect with others who are living for Him, and to unite under the incredible truth of what He did for each of us on the cross. While we may disagree with others regarding other aspects of God, other beliefs, or other doctrines, probably the best place for us to start being united is under the cross, and specifically under the amazing truth of God’s love for us that led Him to the cross. Jesus died for everyone, and through His death He offers salvation to all who want to accept His gift – and while it is challenging for us to accept, this might include people who we don’t agree with.

This journal entry’s passage opens with a very strange phrase that challenged me when I first read it. Taken at surface value, it could be seen to conflict with another significant passage a few chapters later in John’s book. I dislike it when an author contradicts themselves, and when the Bible seems to have a contradiction like this, my reaction is to dig in and look for a smooth resolution.

In the middle of verse 1 we read, “Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father.” On the surface, reading this verse leads me to believe that the cross was when Jesus left this world, since only hours later, after a really long night with no sleep, Jesus dies on the cross, and His dead body is buried. Along the same lines, Jesus’ spirit (His life breath) would have needed to go somewhere, since it was no longer with His body, so that must mean it returned to God. And then the conclusion, since Jesus is speaking from a very specific perspective, must be that Jesus left the world when His spirit returned to God following His death on the cross.

This is an easy conclusion to reach, but there is a problematic verse a few chapters later that counters this. In the garden, following Jesus’ resurrection, He tells Mary, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (John 20:17)

Jesus directly tells Mary that He had not ascended yet, but that He was about to. This is incredibly significant, and problematic, because this means that Jesus’ death was not when He returned to the Father, but shortly (i.e. hours) after His resurrection.

I wonder if this point when Jesus returned to heaven was originally designed to be His glorious return to God and then looking back down, the Godhead realized that the remaining disciples need a little more encouragement and regrouping prompting a number of other encounters. Or, perhaps, this initial ascension was when Jesus received His new body, and then He returned temporarily to help the disciples regroup and understand what had just happened before a more official “ascension” around five or so weeks later.

So where does that leave us with John’s first challenging statement in chapter 13?

I wonder if John opens up this chapter as a grand transition into the crucifixion event, and that He includes it as a way of pulling the reader into the significance that will follow.

John’s gospel is the most detailed of the gospels surrounding Jesus’ last night before the crucifixion, and it all starts in the upper room. All of Jesus’ ministry and life were leading up to this point, and John wants us to realize who Jesus was during His last hours with them. The only time left was in that upper room, and the walk to the garden. After those few hours, when the betrayer and arrest would come, Jesus’ time with the disciples would be up.

Both these passages really push me to look at a central idea: Value the time you have right now with Jesus. We are not guaranteed future time with Him on this side of heaven, and the decisions we make today have a profound impact on that promised future.

During one of the times Jesus was preaching the crowds, He uses an illustration that contrasts thieves/robbers and the good shepherd. While reading this illustration, a powerful idea is hinted at early on while Jesus is describing the shepherd.

One of the first distinctive ideas Jesus shares about the good shepherd is that “The sheep know their shepherd’s voice. He calls each of them by name and leads them out.” (v. 3b)

This phrase stands out to me because in it I see a description of a very personal relationship being described. Regardless of the size of the flock of sheep, each sheep has a name, the shepherd uses this name to refer to that sheep, and there has been enough time spent with the shepherd and each sheep that each sheep is able to recognize the shepherd’s voice.

Jesus ultimately explains how He is the “Good Shepherd”, and that He wants to have a personal relationship with each of His sheep. While Jesus does imply that there are those who are not part of His flock of sheep, He doesn’t dwell on them or focus on them at all. Jesus is interested most in loving, caring for, and protecting His sheep, and He even goes as far as giving each sheep a name.

This is amazing in my mind, because as a member of God’s family, God wants to be so close to me that He can give me a new name. We could call this a nickname, or we could adopt God’s name for us as our true name. When God names us, He names us based on how He sees each of us, and at the foundation of each new name is the truth that we have been redeemed/saved through what Jesus did for us on the cross.

Leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion on the cross, several of the gospel writers include a short transition statement that is worth us paying attention to. In most cases, this transition statement would simply be skimmed over when reading it, but if we pause long enough to let these verses sink in, we can see something incredible in what was planned vs. what actually happened.

Mark’s gospel tells us that “It was now only two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The leading priests and teachers of the law were trying to find a trick to arrest Jesus and kill him. But they said, ‘We must not do it during the feast, because the people might cause a riot.’” (v. 1-2)

In these verses, we can see a clear contrast between two different ideas. The first is that the religious leaders were set on finding a way to trick and arrest Jesus with the ultimate intent of killing Him. However, the second idea is that the leaders know that they must do this when not many others are around because otherwise it might cause a riot. Because of the fear of rioting among Jesus’ supporters, the leaders decide to wait and not look to arrest Him during the feast.

However, Jesus has told the disciples that He was going up to Jerusalem and would be killed. Jesus knew the exact time and exact way these events would happen – and specifically that His death would be during the feast.

In our passage, we see a growing conflict between God’s plan and our human plans. Looking at what happened during that Passover-crucifixion weekend, we can easily conclude that whenever our plans conflict with God’s plan, God’s plan always takes precedence. While this doesn’t mean that we cannot pray and ask God to adjust His plan, knowing this detail should prompt us to always frame our requests by asking for God’s will to be done.

Sometimes God will change His plans based on our requests, but even if He doesn’t, we should trust that He knows what is best from eternity’s perspective.