7 Easter – May 12, 2024
John 17:6-19
For this seventh Sunday after Easter, the Revised Common Lectionary always gives us a portion of Jesus’s “High Priestly Prayer”. It’s the culmination of his farewell discourse to his disciples.
The setting is the Upper Room on Maundy Thursday. Jesus has just washed his disciples’ feet, foreseen Judas’s betrayal, predicted Peter’s denial, promised his disciples the Holy Spirit, and offered them urgent words of instruction. Time is running out, and Jesus knows it.
In an outpouring of words and emotions, Jesus asks God to do for his friends what he himself can no longer do. To be for them in spirit what he can no longer be for them in body. “Protect them,” Jesus prays. “Protect them by your name.” “Protect them from the evil one.” Protect them so that they can know unity, joy, and truth.
Think about overhearing Jesus praying for you. That is what he is doing here, he is praying for you and me, he’s praying for all of us. He invites us to enter into a new relationship with him that will no longer depend on his physical presence but will rely instead on trusting in his love and growing into the people and the community that Christ has called us to become and to be. It is time for us to become his body, to continue his transforming work in the world that he has physically left but has not abandoned. Has never abandoned.
Jesus prays for us. You see, prayer isn’t simply a routine, it’s not just a spiritual exercise, it’s not even merely a healthy part of our faith lives. It may be all of those things, but it’s also something more. Prayer is love. Taking the time to name the hopes, joys, the concerns, fears, and thanksgiving of someone you know and to bring all of that into the presence of God through prayer is an act of love, plain and simple. It expresses your care, your concern, and your compassion for the one(s) for whom you are praying. And it expresses your trust that they are as important to God as they are to you.
Prayer is relationship, prayer is love. Prayer is a chance to remind ourselves of blessing and give thanks. Jesus takes the opportunity to recognize the disciples and their fidelity – “they have kept your word” he says in verse 6 – and give thanks for them. Do you know how powerful it can be to hear someone thank God for you? That’s something we can do more frequently!
And prayer is a chance to share our deep-seated concerns, worries, and fears and ask for help. Notice how honest Jesus is about his concerns. He knows it’s going to be hard for his disciples, that the world will be hard on them, and he doesn’t hide that. Prayer is a time to tell the truth.
Jesus prayed for us. Has been praying for us ever since, and continues to hold us in the center of his heart. This does not guarantee an easy life, let alone the material comforts and riches some preachers promise. It does not remove us from the realm of illness or disappointment, brokenness or loss. It does not, as Jesus acknowledged, remove us from the world and all its challenges (or it’s beauty!). But it does mean that Jesus is with us, cares for us, loves us, and prayed and prays for us. Pretty awesome. Pray. Love. Because Jesus did. For us. All for us and always for us. Which makes it possible for us to do the same for others.
And so, as Brother David Vryhof concludes about this gospel passage: “As you carry out your particular mission in the world today, remember that you are surrounded and upheld by a great love, a love greater even than the love of a parent for a child. Trust in that love. Abide in that love. Be that love.”
On this Mother’s Day, let’s pray together, in love and in honesty, for all the wide spectrum of women in our midst: Hand out Litany for Mother’s Day
A Litany for Mother’s Day
from Amy Young (adapted)
Leader: This is the day the Lord has made!
Congregation: We will rejoice and be glad in it!
Leader: To those who are pregnant with new life,
Congregation: we anticipate with you
Leader: To those who gave birth this year to their first child
Congregation: we celebrate with you!
Leader: To those who placed children up for adoption
Congregation: we commend you for your selflessness and remember how you hold that child in your heart
Leader: To those who lost a child this year. To those who experienced loss this year through miscarriage, failed adoptions, or accidents
Congregation: we mourn with you.
Leader: To those who are in the trenches with little ones every day and wear the badge of food stains
Congregation: we appreciate you
Leader: To those who walk the hard path of infertility, fraught with pokes, prods, tears, hopes that are dashed and disappointment
Congregation: we walk with you. Forgive us when we say foolish things. We don’t mean to make this harder than it is.
Leader: To those who are foster moms, mentor moms, and spiritual moms
Congregation: thank you! We need you. We appreciate you!
Leader: To those who have warm and close relationships with your children
Congregation: we celebrate with you.
Leader: To those who have disappointment, heartache and distance with your children
Congregation: we sit with you.
Leader: To those who experienced abuse at the hands of your own mother
Congregation: we acknowledge your experience. We are sad with you. We pray for healing.
Leader: To those who lived through driving tests, medical tests, and the overall testing of motherhood
Congregation: we are better for having you in our midst
Leader: To those who have aborted children
Congregation: we remember them and you on this day.
Leader: To those who are single and long to be married and mothering your own children
Congregation: we mourn that life has not turned out the way you longed for it to be
Leader: To those who step-parent
Congregation: we walk with you on these complex paths
Leader: To those who envisioned lavishing love on grandchildren -yet that dream is not to be
Congregation: we grieve with you
Leader: To those who will have emptier nests in the upcoming year
Congregation: we grieve and rejoice with you
Leader: To those who are caring for their mothers in the midst of medical needs
Congregation: God sustain you.
Leader: To those whose mother died this year or in years past
Congregation: we grieve with you. Peace to you.
Leader: This Mother’s Day, every day, we all walk together as the family of God. All are valued. All make a difference. For the mothers present and represented among us, we give extra thanksgiving today.
Congregation: For their love, encouragement and strength, we thank the Lord.
Leader: Drawn together by the Spirit, we join with others as one family in worship, in prayer, in praise, in company. We come to worship God and to grow in faith together.
Congregation: Let us love one another as God first loved us.
Amen.
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