This morning’s Gospel continues our reading of Jesus’ Farewell Discourse from St John’s Gospel. This is something we’ve been reading for the last few Sundays, and this morning, we hear the start of the last part of that discourse which, although it still forms part of the Farewell Discourse, is often given its own name or title, and that is, Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer.
As we go through this part of the Farewell Discourse, Jesus says a number of times that he’s praying but we know right from the outset, before he says that, that he is praying because we’re told in the first verse that Jesus “lifted up his eyes to heaven” which is a posture people adopted when praying that we read about a number of times in the Scriptures. And Jesus prays first for himself, then for his disciples, and we read part of that prayer this morning, and then finally, in a part of the prayer we don’t read this morning, he prays for those who will believe through the disciples, and in this part of the prayer Jesus is praying, among others, for us.
It’s not unusual to read of Jesus praying in the gospels but the first part of the prayer, I think, can seem a bit strange to us. For one thing, Jesus starts by praying for himself and that’s something we tend not to do isn’t it? We usually pray for others first and ourselves last, probably because we think to do things the other way round is self-centred, perhaps even un-Christian. And yet, in this prayer, Jesus does pray for himself first. But as he goes on, it becomes obvious why he does that. The prayer begins with the Father, but what Jesus then prays for makes it quite clear why he comes next; it’s because what he says amounts to a statement of his own equality with the Father. And it’s all to do with glory.
All this talk of ‘glorification’ is another reason, I think, why this prayer can sound a bit strange to us. What is Jesus really saying amidst all this prayer for glorification and talk about glorification?
We know that to glorify someone is to say something good about them, and that’s essentially what glorification means in this prayer. Jesus starts by praying to the Father, that that the Father, his Father will,
“… glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you …”
What Jesus is praying for here is that, through his Passion, his death on the Cross, and his Resurrection, his own true identity as God’s Son will be revealed. And as Jesus is glorified by being revealed as God’s Son, he will glorify the Father because his words and works will be shown to have come from the Father.
Because Jesus’ words and works will be shown to have come from the Father, the Father will be glorified too, because his nature will be revealed in and through what Jesus has said and done. The Father’s love for us, his willingness, and desire, to forgive us our sins, his wish for us to be restored to that loving relationship with him that we were created for, and the Father’s wish for us to enter eternal life, will all be revealed through Jesus’ words and works. And to all intents and purposes, that’s what Jesus is saying when he says to the Father,
“I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.”
So, in essence, Jesus is saying, ‘When I’m raised from the dead, I’ll be glorified because everyone will know who I am, and because they know who I am, you, my Father, will also be glorified because they’ll also know you. People will finally understand that I came from you, and so they’ll also realise that everything I said about you is true. And he then moves on to this great claim to equality with the Father;
“And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”
Here, Jesus is praying that he will be restored to his rightful place at his Father’s side. He’s saying that this is where he came from, and this is where he will return to. He’s saying that he was in the beginning with the Father and the Spirit before creation began. He’s saying that he, like the Father and the Spirit, is from all eternity.
When we understand what Jesus is praying for and saying in the first part of this prayer, it isn’t such a great surprise that he comes first in the prayer. But Jesus prayer for glorification doesn’t end here. Later, when he prays for his disciples, he says,
“… I am glorified in them”.
When we understand what Jesus means when he speaks about his glorification by the Father and the mutual glorification of the Father and the Son, I think it’s quite obvious that when Jesus says he will be glorified in his disciples, he means that, just as the Father revealed the Son to the world through the Resurrection, and Jesus revealed the Father to the world through his words and works, the disciples will reveal Jesus, the Son, to the world through their words and works. And that is, in fact, what we’re called to do as disciples of Christ isn’t it. That’s the content of the Great Commission Jesus gave his Church, the mission we were reminded of in the Gospel reading just a few days ago on the Feast of the Ascension. Jesus’ call to his Church to,
“Go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
This how we glorify Jesus, how we reveal Jesus to the world. But have you ever stopped for a moment to consider just what a great and terrible commission this is? What an awesome and frightening commission this is?
We glorify Jesus by revealing him to the world, but what if we do something in his name, which doesn’t reveal Jesus to the world? What if we, as a Church, or as individual Christians, do something that Jesus has taught us not to do, or don’t do something he told us that we should do, what then? How are we glorifying Jesus in those cases? Who and what are we revealing to the world when we do things like this? Aren’t we, in fact, dishonouring Jesus when we do these things?
We know that some terrible things have happened in the Church, and in churches. We know that there have been some terrible crimes committed by Church people. We also know that there have been attempts to cover-up and hide these crimes. But these things haven’t only been crimes against their human victims, they’ve also been crimes against Jesus because we are called to glorify him by revealing him to the world. What have those who’ve committed these crimes revealed to the world? They are called Christians, people who model themselves on Jesus Christ. What then, have the things they’ve done revealed to the world about Jesus? Have they glorified him, or dishonoured him? And in all the apologies the Church and its people have made, have we ever heard anyone from the Church say ‘This is not what Jesus Christ taught. What has happened here has nothing to do with Jesus Christ and we also ask his forgiveness for dragging his name and the name of his Church through the mud and the mire.’ You may have heard someone say that, but I don’t ever recall hearing it.
But we in the Church, we who call ourselves Christians, can dishonour Jesus in so many ways. We do it through our petty squabbling. We do it through our jockeying for position, lusting after a position in the Church that gives us some authority, and then using, though abusing might be a better word for it, that authority to get our own way. We do it through our ‘empire building’ wanting multiple positions in a church so we can be in charge of everything. We do it through forming cliques so that we can keep hold of the reins of power and keep down, or even force out those we disagree with or simply don’t like. And how many people have left the Church because they’ve been misused and abused by other members of the Church? I come across people like that all the time, people who tell me that they used to go to this church or that but stopped going because of an argument with another member of the church.
Sometimes they’ve stopped going to church because of the hypocrisy of another member, or members, of the church, the way they were behaving. On the other hand, some of those people have stopped going to church because they’ve been taken to task for their own inappropriate and un-Christian behaviour. This is something Jesus told us we should do, but how many people are too proud to accept or admit that they’ve been in the wrong and, when they’re told that they are, or have been, get on their high horse and simply stop going to church? Often playing the victim into the bargain?
We know all these things go on in the Church and in churches but does any of this glorify Jesus, or does it all dishonour him? And if we, who are called to glorify Jesus, dishonour him, how can we reveal him to the world? If we call ourselves Christians, people who are Christ-like, and we’re petty, and proud, and malicious, and arrogant, and stubborn, isn’t there a danger that’s what the people who we’re called to bring to know Jesus will think of him too? We don’t like to be called hypocrites but, when we do things like this, it’s for the best that we are. Better that people know we’re being hypocrites than for them to think that Jesus himself was like this.
In this morning’s reading from the First Letter of St Peter, we’re told that when we suffer for Christ’s sake, the spirit of glory rests on us. It doesn’t rest on us if we suffer for doing wrong, but it does when we suffer for being a Christian. So, when we glorify Jesus through our obedience to him, he glorifies us in the Spirit; we’re glorified because we’re revealed to the world as his disciples. So let’s be glorified in the way Christians should be glorified. Not by trying to glorify ourselves, but by glorifying Christ, so that he will glorify us. That will mean suffering for Christ in some ways, and one of those ways is certain to be through accepting that we have to be a little more humble than we’d like to be; by not insisting on having our own way, by not wanting to be in charge and having the final say in everything we’re involved in, and by accepting that sometimes we are wrong and other people are allowed to point that out to us without it causing an argument, or causing us to go into a sulk and refusing to do anything in the church again, or to throw a hissy fit and stop going to church completely. And if people aren’t happy about that then, I’m sorry, but it’s all part and parcel of being a Christian. It’s part and parcel of what it means to reveal Jesus to the world, and to glorify him in the world because isn’t this exactly what Jesus told us to do when he said,
“If anyone would be my disciple, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me”?
Amen.
Propers for the 7th Sunday of Easter, 21st May 2023
Entrance Antiphon
Lord, hear my voice when I call to you.
My heart has prompted me to seek your face;
I seek it, Lord; do not hide it from me, alleluia!
The Collect
O God the King of glory,
you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ,
with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven:
we beseech you, leave us not comfortless,
but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us,
and exalt us to the place where our Saviour Christ is gone before,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
The Readings
Missal (St Mark’s)
Acts 1:12-14
Psalm 27:1, 4, 7-8
1 Peter 4:13-16
John 17:1-11
RCL (St Gabriel’s)
Acts 1:6-14
Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35
1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11
John 17:1-11
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 