Jesus Did Not Want to Be an Only Child!

7 Easter Cycle  A      May 24, 2020

Acts 1:6-14        Ps. 68 

 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11   John 17:1-11     
Lectionary Link

Today is the Sunday after the Ascension.  Houston, there's been a lift off and Jesus has gone out of sight....And where did the early church believe that Jesus went?  They believed that he went into the realm of God to be with his heavenly parent and be a High Priest in the heavenly realm.  And what does Jesus the High Priest do?  He continues to live forever making intercession on our behalf.

In the Gospel of John for today, we've read the true "Lord's Prayer;" the other one is actually the disciples' prayer taught to them by Jesus, and he did teach them to address God as "Our Father."

When we read the Gospel of John, we get the impression that the writer walked with Jesus and was so beloved and close to Jesus that he shared with him his words and thoughts.  And if Jesus is a great High Priest who intercedes for us in heaven, the Gospels also presented him as a man who prayed and interceded for his friends while he lived on earth.

The writer of John really felt so close to Jesus, that he knew how Jesus prayed, so much so that we get a glimpse into the heart of concern of Jesus.  This prayer of Jesus expresses the mystical goal of the Gospel program of John's Gospel.  "Father, I ask that my friends might be one, as you and are one."

We sometimes think that this refers to the unity of the church, and it can and does, but more specifically in John's mystical program, Jesus desires that each person come to know the oneness with the heavenly parent as it has been modeled by him.  

Jesus is saying to his heavenly parent, " Father, I don't want to be an only child....let me have many, many, many brothers and sister.  Let them realize their end in life, which is to know themselves as sons and daughters of God.  That they may be one with you Father, as I am one with with you.

So, how are you and I going to realize and know that we are sons and daughters of God and one with our heavenly parent?

We're going to do what Jesus did.  And what did Jesus do?  He prayed.  We pray because we already have taken up identity within the family of God, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  What is prayer?  According to our catechism it is living as though all our lives is a continual response to God with words and without words; with unspoken words of our body language in what we do and perform in love and justice.

In John's Gospel, Christ is the Eternal Word from the beginning.  Jesus said that his words were Spirit and life.   And when we make our lives prayer lives, we make our words spirit and life.  We live our lives emulating Jesus who is an intercessor for others.

When Jesus walked this earth, he prayed for his friends.  When Christ rose and ascended, he continues to pray.  And he says to us, " I want to borrow you and your life; I want to pray in and through you continually and make your lives, lives of prayer, and so you will know your true identity as sons and daughters of God, because you will embrace the very same prayer ministry that I have in this world."

Dear friends, don't doubt the image of God on your life.  You belong to God.  And how do you know it and practice it?  You pray, I pray and we all pray, all of the time.  Prayer involves word and Prayer words create.  They name the situation.  They name the need.  They name the normalcy of health and salvation.  They state the deprivation from health and salvation which sin and sickness and this pandemic are.  And words are like votes; if we cast enough of them to invoke health and salvation, we can tip the scales toward majority in the freedom that is in our world and come to realize health.

No matter what happened to Jesus.  He prayed.  Why?  He was one with God the Creator.  And you and I are invited into the priestly ministry of Jesus by living lives of prayer as it has been shown to us by Jesus.

Rejoice today.  We are chlldren of God.  We are one with the Father.  So, let get on with it.  Let get on with making prayer the very vocation of our lives.  Not just table grace prayer or prayer at church; but prayer as our intentional life of responding to God as our Father.  Amen.