[AI translation] Someone once said that when he reads and studies this prayer of Jesus, he feels as if he hears the same warning that Moses heard near the burning bush: "Unloose your shoes from off your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground." (Exodus 3:5) For through this holy prayer we are given insight into one of the deepest mysteries: the most sacred relationship of the Son of God with His Father.It is said that Spencer, the father of pietism, never once in his 40 years of preaching dared to preach on this passage. I dare to do so only because this passage follows from the Gospel of John. But indeed! Let us approach it in some way as Moses approached the burning bush: with reverent humility, with prayerful reverence, as those who walk in the holy of holies! I do not really want to systematize the verses, to bring them under a single perspective, but only to listen to the Word almost verse by verse, sometimes word by word, and to amplify something of the message through the microphone of human words.
So let us start at the beginning! Jesus begins, "Father!" We are so used to calling God Father that we do not attach any particular significance to it. But this is not at all self-evident, not natural, but a very special privilege! No people has ever dared to call their god Father. In pagan religions, this intimate address would be unthinkable. In the Old Testament it occurs a few times, but only as prophetic utterance. The fatherhood of God and the name Father were first revealed to the world by Jesus. This was the whole purpose of Jesus' mission, to make God known to us as our Father. That's why everything happened, that's why there was the suffering, Calvary, the open tomb, so that sinful, lost people could say to the great, holy God, "My Father!
And on the lips of Jesus this word has a very deep meaning. The fullness of trust, of reassurance, of harmony, even unity with God, is expressed in this one word, "Father". A pastor once told me that when he and his son were travelling on a train, he ran through the tunnel several times. When it suddenly became dark, the father felt the little child's body clinging to him and clinging to his arm. Even if he couldn't see his father, he could feel him there. And that was enough for him, and it is enough for any child who trusts his father. If a child can be thus reassured by the sense of the nearness of an earthly father, how much more can he be reassured in the dark who can thus say to Almighty God: "Father!"
Look at Jesus, when did He pray like this? When He was on His way to the Garden of Gethsemane. He is fully aware that He is about to enter into a night of suffering. And yet, in the whole prayer, there is not a single word of complaint, not a single lamenting voice, not a single fear of suffering or death. Something of great, deep peace pervades the whole prayer. Where does the Lord get such great peace? From the certain knowledge that God is his Father! He trusts in the Father completely, and even if He is now being led to Gethsemane and Calvary, God is His Father!
And now let us not forget, Brethren, that this is the Father of Jesus Christ in Jesus and through Jesus we also have a Father! We can say the same way He said on that terrible night, Father! He Himself said: 'Pray ye therefore, Our Father' (Mt 6,9) And can our hearts find complete peace in trusting in the Father? Or do we not trust the Father so much? All anxiety, all fear, all worry is in fact nothing but distrust of the Father! For nothing can happen to us but what He wants and sees as good! "Your Father knows well what you need", says Jesus (Mt 6,8). There is nothing in the lives of His children that is trivial or unimportant to the Father! When Jesus says that not a single hair of our head will fall without His will, He is saying that there is really nothing in the lives of His children - no matter how small or big - that the Father does not know about, or even control! Jesus never says something to make it more interesting or beautiful, but what He says is literally what He says! Let us rejoice then, brothers and sisters, that we have such a Father in Jesus and through Jesus! Every troubled, wavering heart will find complete peace again if it can tell God with the confidence of a redeemed soul, a reconciled child: Father! For the Lord Jesus suffered and died so that all who believe in Him may say with full confidence to the mighty God, "My Father!
"Father," says Jesus, and continues, "the hour has come." (John 17:1) What hour has come? The hour of suffering, the hour of humiliation, the hour in which he must drink that certain bitter cup. And though he knows, clearly, distinctly, that now, behold, this hour has come, yet how calm, how peaceful! The thought of suffering and death does not frighten him, for he is sure that his soul rests in the Father! Earlier, Jesus had said, "My hour is not yet come" (John 2:4). But he also knows that this hour has not come without the Father's knowledge and permission! He knows that this hour was ordained by the Father for Him! It is a pre-ordained hour, which has now come, whose time has now come: it is in God's programme for Jesus, this hour! Therefore, this hour cannot deceive Jesus about the Father's love! That is why, even in this hour - which has now, behold, come - he can look up to the Father with confidence and reassurance! And that is why in it - in this hour - there is for Him not only suffering, but already consolation! "Father, the hour has come." God has a programme for our lives too. And the hours of sorrows and sufferings are part of that program! And when such hours come, let us remember that now is the hour that God has also calculated into our lives, and the heavenly Mother is behind this hour with His love! Just a faithful look at the Saviour, Who is going peacefully and calmly towards the Gethsemane, and such a look can help us so much that we too can face such hours so calmly and peacefully.
"Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you... I have glorified thee on earth: I have done the work which thou hast given me to do. And now, Father, glorify me with the same glory that I glorified you with before the world was." (John 17:1b and 4-5) So Jesus glorifies God by fully accomplishing the mission the Father has entrusted to Him: the work of redemption. Jesus' suffering and death are therefore not a shame, but a revelation of God's glory. It is precisely in what is to come, in the events of Calvary, that God shows His true love and His true power! The love with which He covers our wickedness, and the power with which He blots out our sins, with which He creates new life out of death. In Christ's death is revealed the divine glory that He has always enjoyed with the Father.
So it is as if the Lord is now praying that God will make Calvary the place of the revelation of redeeming divine love, a place where all lost people can find their salvation and eternal life! So in this God is glorified through the Son, and the Son through the Father, to give eternal life to His own! For those who can call God their Father in Him and through Him, the most precious treasure they can receive from Jesus is eternal life! Let us remember, then: not an untroubled, fortunate, successful life on earth, but eternal life! What is this eternal life? Shall I emphasise that it is not a matter for the future, but for the present? Many people believe, of course, that eternal life begins after death. One must die first to possess eternal life. Well, that's not true! Eternal life is very much a matter of the present. Because if one does not have eternal life after death, one will certainly not have it after death! Only he who is already in it here and now should hope for eternal life beyond death! What then is eternal life? It is a life which, unlike earthly life, comes from above, from eternity, but at the same time it is the life of the earthly life which ends in it. So it is life from God. Divine life. It does not pass away with time, so it survives our earthly sojourn, it extends into eternity. One has eternal life: that means that it is a different life, a different life-element than the sons of the world. He lives from above, from the world of God, from the power of God, from the grace of the Father. That is why the Lord says to Paul: "My grace is sufficient for you." (2 Cor 12:9) Enough for everything! Indeed!
What is eternal life? Jesus says: "But this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." (John 17:3) So the true knowledge of God: this is eternal life. This means two things: on the one hand, to know God as He has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ! On the other hand, we must understand the word "knowledge" in its deepest and most profound sense! As the Bible uses this word to express the most intimate relationship of spouses. "To know" in this sense, therefore, means the most intimate relationship, the communion. It is a knowing that means a full communion of life with God. And this is what Jesus came to make possible, this is what He gives!
Do you know about this eternal life? Do you know it? Have you accepted it from Him? Has He given it to you? Sometimes we need to shake the other life around us, the earthly life, so that we can reach out our hands for eternal life. He will do all and everything to lead us, lost children, back to our Heavenly Father!
Look up now in spirit to the majestic God in heaven, and trusting in Christ's redemptive work of eternal life, say to him with filial reverence:
Thou, though thou art so majestic,
Thy power and thy majesty are so great,
Yet we who are dust of the earth
And wretched worms we are
You make us worthy to be your sons
We call thee our Father!
Canto 483, verse 2
Amen
Date: 10 June 1951.
Lesson
Jn 17,1-15