Glory Your Son -- John 17:1-5

Introduction

It had been three years that seemed to last for an eternity yet felt that it had passed with the blink of an eye. It had been a time filled with triumphs, frustrations, conflict and fellowship. There had been quiet moments of reflection and learning, and tumultuous times of throngs pressing, demanding, imploring, confronting.

And now it was coming to an end. The hour was near, and He knew He was returning to the Father. So much had been done, and yet there was still much to learn. Jesus could take comfort in knowing that His ministry would continue through the Holy Spirit that was soon to come and spread His message throughout Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the world. The seed had been planted; now it was time for the vine to grow and bear fruit, fruit for the kingdom of God that Jesus had established through His obedience to the Father.

It had been a night of close fellowship with His disciples. A nice meal combined with final instructions and words of comfort, joy and warning. Now Jesus was preparing to face the greatest test of His earthly ministry. As was so often the case in His time on this world, Jesus knew that the time was right for a talk with the Father. Having completed His instructions to the remaining disciples, Jesus now prayed a prayer of preparation and hope.

Background

The prayer we look at today is often referred to Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer. Unlike the Lord’s Prayer which was instructional in nature, this prayer is personal. It is a prayer that Jesus asks the Father to glorify Him, to prepare and protect His disciples and to unite those who would come as a result of their ministry.

In the Old Testament, as the high priest would prepare to enter the Holy of Holies in the Temple, the priest would consecrate himself through a ritual cleansing and bathing. He would place himself before God seeking atonement for his sins first. Only then would he be worthy to enter the presence of God as he approached the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant.

In Chapter 13, we know that Jesus knew the time had come to return to the Father. He knew He was to lay His life down and would pick it up again once atonement for sin for all time had been fulfilled. He spent the evening teaching His disciples what this time meant for them, how their world was about to change, and how God was going to continue to provide for them by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. With that completed, Jesus used this prayer to prepare Himself for the sacrifice that was to be made at Calvary.

Central Truth: In Jesus’ prayer, He knows He has earned glory through His obedience to the Father.

Jesus seeks glory:

1. To glorify the Father (1)

The prayer begins with the Son looking up to the Father.

The relationship between the Father and the Son has always been close. Jesus had told His disciples that He only did what the Father told Him to do, only said what the Father told Him to say. This Jesus who had willingly given up His glory with the Father to become a Servant on earth, the Son of Man who would teach and lead and die for all humanity for all time, now looks up to the Father with confidence and an awareness of Who and What He is and is to become.

The prayer begins with a simple declaration of fact—“The time has come.” Throughout His public ministry, Jesus knew the hour was not right. When Mary instructed those at the Cana wedding to do His bidding, Jesus told her His hour had not come. When the people wanted to claim Him as Messiah, Jesus withdrew from them, because the time had not come. Jesus knew always that the time was coming, but until this night, He knew the time was in the future. Now is the time to lay down His life. Now is the time to pay the price for our sins. Now is the time to walk alone, to endure the pain and the temptations that awaited Him over the next 24 hours. “The time has come.”

Knowing this, Jesus doesn’t ask the Father to strengthen Him or to sustain Him. Instead, His prayer is that He be glorified in order to glorify the Father. “Glorify Your Son” is a request to let Himself be obedient to the end, and, having endured, that He be raised once again, not so that others will worship Him, but so that others will know the Father’s love and grace and mercy and majesty—that we may know God’s glory.

One might argue that the prayer is a selfish prayer, but we would be wrong to do so. The prayer to glorify the Son is one of obedience and confidence in the Father’s ability to see Jesus through the trying time to come. We have yet to go to Gethsemane, where Jesus will ask that the cup pass from Him, where Jesus will sweat drops as of blood, so stressed will He be over the weight of the decision before Him. But knowing that the evening is coming and with it the temptations to waiver, Jesus asks with confidence that the Father to bring glory to the Son—let Him be faithful to His calling through the end, and so bring glory to the Father.

1. Because He gave eternal life to those who belong to Him (2-3)

The next phrase in Jesus’ prayer is one of recognition of His true power—authority over all people. Jesus alone has the power to give life or death to all humanity. He alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life. He alone is enabled to wield this power over all of us.

And the reason He has been given this authority is to bring eternal life to those who have been given to Him.

The gift of eternal life is the gift of fellowship with the Father through the Son by the presence of the Holy Spirit. We enter into eternal life the moment we first believe, not in some distance future event. This eternal life allows us to know the mind of Christ. It allows us to be filled with the Holy Spirit, that brings to our remembrance all that Christ has said, that gives us the inspired Bible to teach us God’s ways. Eternal life is continual growth and transformation under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit of God Himself.

Jesus refers to the Father as the only true God. The term is a distinction as separating God from all the other would-be gods in our world. Satan offers us imitations, god-like plans and promises, but only the true God gives eternal life, and that life is found in Jesus Christ alone.

1. As validation of His obedience and His position in the Godhead (4-5)

As comes to the next two verses, He speaks as if the work ahead is an accomplished thing. He tells the Father He has completed the work given to Him by His Father.

Look at all that Jesus has done. From the moment of His birth to the present, everything has pointed to the glory of God the Father. When the shepherds came to see the infant in the manger, to the wise men who came from far lands simply to worship Him, Jesus has brought glory to the Father.

Jesus’ obedience to the Father in resisting all temptations, in faithfully following the Father’s will and being the living vision of the Father to all who saw Jesus brought glory to the Father. When Jesus raised the widow’s son from death, the people of the city claimed that God had come to their place, and they praised and glorified the Father.

Everything Jesus did was to bring glory to the Father, to point us to Him. And now Jesus was to perform the ultimate test of obedience. It cannot be questioned that Jesus faced His greatest temptations as He stood before the High Priest, before Herod, before Pilate. Satan surely threw the entire might at his disposal at Jesus as Jesus walked the Via Delarosa, and He was nailed to the cross, as He hung from the cross, crying out to the Father, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?”

And yet Jesus knew He would complete the task. “I have brought You glory on earth by completing the work You gave Me.”

The only thing left for Jesus is to regain the glory that was once His before Jesus chose to descend to our world and take on our nature. Upon the final completion of His work, Jesus asks God to restore Him to the rightful place, to be seated at the right hand of the Father, in order that He may have the glory that was His, in order that He may continue His ministry of intercession on behalf of those whom the Father has given Him.

Conclusion

Reading the first five verses of this marvelous prayer gives us insight into the heart and mind of Jesus unlike anything we have seen or heard before. We see the dynamics of the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. The Son’s confidence in the Father enables Jesus to be confident in His own ability to finish the work that the Father has given Him to do. This prayer begins with intimacy, assurance and confidence.

In our lives, we, too, can have an intimacy with the Father through the Son. We, too, can ask the Father to enable us to be about His business in order that, through us, the Father may be glorified and praised. In a life of surrender, a life of faith, a life of calm assurance in the Father’s ability and will, we can ask God great things and expect great things from Him.