By Deacon Virginia Jenkins-Whatley
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit….Amen
Here is the setting for today’s Gospel. It is the night before Maundy Thursday right before Jesus is arrested and he has been trying to say good-bye to his disciples. While everyone is still around the table and listening, he starts to pray. Last week’s gospel Jesus confesses his love for his disciples and commands that we abide in his love and love one another as he loves us.
Today he is not only praying for his disciples, he is praying to them so that they might also hear some final words of guidance before being sent back out into the world.
“I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world.”
Jesus final message says that God gave you to me, which makes you a gift from God. And I may no longer be in the world, but you are. Not only are you in the world, but I have sent you to be here. And now my works are in your hands. Jesus is praying also for the protection of his disciples Through this prayer, “Jesus is counting on us to be his presence in his absence. As the disciples carry the word of God around the world, we believers spread that word and love to people also seeking God’s presence.
Jesus prays that we will remain awake to his reality. People will travel around the world seeking God not realizing that we are the world. The world God loves so much and that in seeing that and knowing that, we would then be the very presence of Jesus in the world.. You already are the presence of Jesus in the world.
In the chapters that came before this, Jesus spoke about the Holy Spirit and how the holy Spirit is involved in the ongoing work of God in the church. So Jesus here highlights the way that the triune God of the bible is at work, the God who is one God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Over and over in this text Jesus speaks of the interaction between him and his Father in which he speaks of how they work together, he speaks of the things they share together and he speaks in a variety of ways of their relationship. In the second half of the text Jesus prays for his people which we know from the previous chapters is a prayer about the work of the holy spirit.
So, the Christian doctrine of the trinity is woven through out this text and revealed in it. God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit are active in the salvation of God’s people, in the mission of life of God’s people and in the identity of God’s people.
Basically, he calls us to embrace a salvation by grace in his mercy, embrace his mission to go into the disbelieving world that will hate us, just as he was hated out of sacrificial love just as he did. He calls us to with the proclamation of the gospel in word and deed so that other will come to believe as we have done.
Let us take comfort in his care for us. Let us seek the same thing for ourselves: let us cling to his salvation, let us rejoice that we belong to him and then let us live our lives according to his mission.
Finally, he calls us to delight in the reality that we are not our own, but we belong to him. He has made us for himself and our hearts are restless until they rest in Him.
When working on my sermon last week, as I read this gospel passage, I had flashbacks of my mother and her last days of life. We were called to the hospital to say our last good-byes because she was losing her 10 year battle with cancer and would be gone shortly. I summarized some of what she said to us. For years she would say I am not going to live forever and you all have to learn to live in this crazy world without me. I pray for God to bless you,keep you safe and watch over you all day every day. There are people that hate you and don’t know you. The color of your skin is a neon sign for hate. I have constantly told you that you are all beautiful and smart and you have to succeed in life. You can’t do it without a good education, make God first in your life and rise above the ignorant people that judge you by the color of your skin. Be good to yourselves and others. Save your money.
I will always be with you in spirit. If you feel a pinch in the middle of the night when you are not doing the right thing, that will be me. I can die in peace knowing that I raised you all the right way. You are good people. You were raised believing in God and the love of life. Don’t cry for me smile knowing you are loved, continue to always believe in God.
Last Sunday was Mother’s Day and we remembered what she had told us and laughed about how many times we felt that pinch at night. Reflecting on my mother’s words helped me to appreciate what was going through Jesus’s mind in this gospel.