August 6, 2014
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

Happy Ones and Holy

Please see the links to our EXTRA Bible Study notes at the bottom of the page.

Opening Prayer

Lord, You are my God and greatly to be praised. Glory to Your name.

Read John 17:6-19

[6] “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. [7] Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. [8] For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. [9] I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. [10] All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. [11] I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. [12] While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled. [13] “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. [14] I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. [15] My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. [16] They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. [17] Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. [18] As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. [19] For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Reflect

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). Such devotion not only demands, but should have our all in response.

It is particularly this middle section of John 17 that has led people to call the chapter “Jesus’ high-priestly prayer.” The name has been used since the sixteenth century, although the thought was explored by Christian writers many centuries earlier. Just as a priest was consecrated before being set apart for holy duty (Exod. 28:41), here Jesus “sanctifies” himself for the self-giving of the cross (19). Just as a Jewish high-priest would bathe for the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:4), Jesus prepares himself to offer the greatest of all atonements. For on the cross he will be both priest and victim. When his life is sacrificed and his blood is shed, he is willingly involved in the act, deliberately committed, giving himself to God in death as he has in life.

The letter to the Hebrews contains some intriguing echoes of John’s Gospel, and this is one: the thought of Jesus as high-priest, who now represents his people before God, mediating for us in times of difficulty. Again, the account in John 17 of Jesus’ prayer for his followers and their well-being dovetails well with Hebrews’s picture of his mediation and mercy. What he prayed for then, he makes possible now.

Jesus’ prayer for his disciples has three main requests. First, he wants his friends to be safe in the world, with its miseries and malice, yet guarded from evil, so that both their individual lives and their common life will be solid and secure (11,15). Second, he wants them to be holy. The consecration to which he commits himself is to be infectious. It is for them, too (17-19). Third, he wants them to be a happy people (13). Joy is a serious part of the Gospel. Jesus left it with his friends, and he gives it still.

Apply

Think of the people you love best. What do they need most–safety, a holy life, deep happiness…? Jesus prayed for these things for his friends. Are you doing the same?

Closing prayer

Father God, there is so much I need to be in You and for You. Only the Holy Spirit can actualize all of Your gifts and graces in me. Have Your way with me.

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