12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” John 12:12-13
23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. John 12:23-26
So we’re coming all the way from John 12, where we read about Christ’s glorification, and how He says He needs to lay His life down, as a seed dies, in order to be glorified and to bear fruit.
6 …“Lord, do you wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” John 13:6-8
34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35
We jumped into John 13, where we read about the grace of God as seen through Christ’s humility and His washing of the feet of His disciples.
While He washed Peter’s feet, He told him that unless He cleanses His feet, he shall have nothing to do with Him.
To Judas, He gave a morsel of bread dipped in sauce, before he left them, wandering into the darkness.
5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:5-6
25 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
John 14:25-27
It all led to our getting into John 14, where, in His intimate discussion with His disciples, He mentioned that He is the Way, He is the Truth, and He is the Life… and this is where we established that Christ is more than just a goal, but the Way; More than head knowledge, but an intimate Truth; More than just blessings of prosperity and healing and favor, more than improved circumstances in this finite world, He is the Life, and Life Eternal.
Christ is the Point, and we are the Proof.
8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. John 15:8-11
We kept going, because in John 15, Jesus continues His conversation with the disciples, only He opens their eyes to another perspective – Not only is He the Point of all, and we are His Proof; Jesus is also the Vine, and we are the Branches.
On our own, we cannot bear fruit, much less produce fruit; God, the Vinedresser, takes away the unfruitful branches that do not abide with the Vine – they wither, and they burn.
We are to abide with Christ and His love; He has already cleansed us, in order for us not only to bear fruit, but to bear much fruit. When we abide in Christ, we acknowledge the Father, and when Christ produces fruit which we bear, then the Father is glorified.
Christ tells us this analogy, in order for us to have joy, and joy to the fullest.
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another. John 15:12-13, 16-17
Just as we bear fruit that Christ produces, so we keep the commandment that Christ has spoken, and this commandment is for us to love one another, as He loved us. Christ no longer calls His disciples His servants, but His friends, because He tells them what His Father is doing. Furthermore, He reminds them that we did not choose Him… But He was the One who chose us first, that we would go and bear fruit.
Christ tells us this, in order for us to love one another.
26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.
1 “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. John 15:26 – 16:2
Christ carries over this train of thought in the first verses of John 16, where He warns us that as He was hated and persecuted, so we shall be hated and persecuted. What’s more is that in hating us and persecuting us, the world will think that they would be doing God a favor – But, it turns out, they never knew Him in the first place, and as they hate Jesus, so they hate God as well.
Apparently it’s more of these later words that got to the disciples, because first, Christ discerned their sorrow, and then, He discerned their confusion. To top it all off, Christ gives hope in the form of a Helper, the Holy Spirit who comes when He departs from them and goes to the Father.
In the face of all Christ has told them, He tells them that the Helper, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth will come. He will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. He convicts the world that does not believe Him of sin, and He convicts the world of judgment, for the enemy of our souls and the ruler of this world has not been judged.
More important for the disciples, and for all of us in the body of Christ – He also convicts the world of righteousness; That is, our right-standing with God, which I believe is crucial for us to know at all times, because we do not see Him, yet are assured of our union with Him. We who are righteous have the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Truth – this is the Spirit of Truth who gives us all that comes from Christ, which in turn comes from the Father; and, though through all we receive from the Spirit, we probably would not ask for anything else – well, He reminds us that we CAN ask for anything in His name, that our joy may be full.
22 So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. John 16:22
33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
Christ tops it all off by saying He tells all of this to His disciples that they may have peace above all things, and peace beyond conventional human understanding.
He tells us not only to have peace, but to take heart – He has overcome the world.
From the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, from the public spectacles of glory,
to the intimate acts of grace, speaking of love and hope, and ultimately of peace to the disciples…
…Now, in John 17, Jesus shifts from the people, from His disciples… to His Father.
John 17
The High Priestly Prayer
1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
To the Father, He lifts His eyes, to say the time has come; as He spoke earlier in John 12:He has glorified His name, and He shall glorify it again; Now, He asks the Father to glorify Him in His presence, with the glory they had with each other before the world existed – That the Son may glorify the Father, that all whom the Father has given to the Son shall have eternal life… that is, life beyond existence, a life connected to the Eternal – more than mere ‘knowing’, a life WITH the one, true God, and Jesus Christ.
6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.
He continues by saying that He has glorified His Father on the earth, and that He has manifested His Father’s Name to all He has given Him. He gave them the words coming from the Father, and they received the words and have come to believe that He was sent from the Father.
It all ties together to what we read in Hebrews 8:
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”
Hebrews 8:9-12
Through Christ’s glorification we have been not only been given access to God, but reconciliation with our Father – That we would ‘know’ Him as a son knows his father, and as a father knows his son… and it is by this relationship that we have eternal life.
9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.
26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
In His prayer, Christ asserts that God has given those who would believe in Him, to Him, and we pray as He prays – That He is glorified in us.
He prays that we would be sanctified in the Truth, and that we would be sanctified in His Word, as we are sent into the world.
He prays, not only for His disciples, but all who would come to believe in Him (that’s us) through their word… He prays for all of us to be one. As Christ is in the Father, so the Father is in Christ, and we are one, because we are in the Father and the Son – that as we are sent to the world, they may know that Christ sent us.
…that He sent us, that the love of the Father to the Son has been passed on to us, and that we are in Him, and He is in us.
Oftentimes we talk about receiving Jesus, or God giving Jesus to us.
Here, we read the profound other side of the coin – Jesus asks for us; God gave us to Him.
Christ’s purpose, through all this time, was to reconcile us to the Father.
Christ served His purpose – He is the Point, and we are the Proof.
Christ reconciled us to God – He is the Vine, and we are the Branches.
So much to take in, before we read on Christ’s death, eventual resurrection and ascension.
We give thanks to God, that through Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we not only survive in this world full of troubles… We thrive.
We bear fruit – we shine peace and joy, as Christ has given us peace, and joy.
We stick together, because we love each other as Christ loves us.
In Him we live, in Him we move, and in Him we have our being.
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