Sunday, May 24, 2009

Praying for the Promise

John 17.6-19

Jesus looked up to heaven and prayed: 6‘Father, I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9I 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. 10All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. 12While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. 14I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. 16They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.’

7th Sunday of Easter: Sunday after Ascension

“Jesus raised his eyes to heaven” John 17.6-19

The whole of John 17 is given over to what is commonly called ‘The Prayer of Jesus’ in which he is praying for the church after he has left his disciples to return to heaven. We do not have the content of his prayer on the mountain before he chose the twelve but we are told that it went on all night. He clearly believed in praying for his own.

 

After he returned to heaven the church has always believed that there he continues to pray for his own, particularly that we should be open to guidance and empowering through the Holy Spirit so as to effectively continue his life and works here on earth. As the author of the epistle to the Hebrews reminds us “he lives to ever make intercession”.

The fruit of that intercession of Jesus is abundantly evident in the life and history of the church whenever, and where ever, it finds receptive soil in which to grow.

 

In today’s first reading from Acts we read how the apostles set about replacing Judas. Peter and the others selected a couple of disciples from the 120 who had the basic qualifications and then they drew lots after prayer in which they pleaded “Lord show us which of these two you have chosen. The lot fell to Matthias and he was listed as of the twelve”.  Later, when they came to choose others to share their apostleship with them it was always relying on prayer to the Lord to guide them by the Holy Spirit.

 

Today in the church calendar, 24th May, is appointed to thank God for two priests of the 18th century who were used of God to renew the church and bring revival to England. John and Charles Wesley, through Holy Spirit inspired preaching and hymn writing, lived and communicated a spirituality of grace, frequent communion, and disciplined holiness that transformed the church and the nation. The historian Trevelyan concluded that the Methodist revival saved England from the equivalent here of the French revolution- a further example of the Lord’s intercessory work in heaven producing a spiritual response in human hearts on earth.

 

This weekend a Christian conference is in progress at the Spa Conference centre here in Scarborough. It is on ‘Inner Healing’ and organised by a Monsignor Michael Buckley and his movement know as ‘El Shaddai’ which means ‘God Almighty’. I have known Michael since he was a young priest in Leeds. He is now in his 80s but is more concerned today than earlier that church and nation are in desperate need of a new Pentecost. He is determined to carry on working as long as he can to draw men and women back to gospel basics. He believes in prayer and he trusts in God. He is in no doubt that the Lord in heaven is on his side and working with and through him. He is not the only one, nor his organisation alone, in looking to Jesus to do for us what neither the church or the nation n can do alone.

 

These days of prayer between Ascension and Pentecost are a clear call to the Church i.e. you and me to be united with the heavenly intercessor for the present and future needs of the church and nation.

 

 

 

 

 

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