Service for June 1 Seventh Sunday of Easter
Sermon for June 1, 2025 Seventh Sunday of Easter
Jesus Prayed For You
Friends in Christ, Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God, our Father and the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our Gospel lesson today is from Jesus’ high priestly prayer for his disciples. As we read or listen to these words today, I think it is helpful to go back to the time in which Jesus prayed for his disciples and imagine us being there in that time, for we are Jesus’ disciples too.
The word disciple means learner or student, not one who understands everything, one who is learning. A student, one who studies.
These words were said before Jesus was crucified, not after the resurrection, so we might be surprised to find them on the 7th Sunday of Easter when we celebrated Jesus risen from the dead 7 Sundays ago. These words are a legacy Jesus is leaving to his disciples, his students, learners, but I think it is a safe bet that those gathered to hear them that first time only understood a tiny fraction of what he was saying, even if that.
The procession into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday had just happened. People were excited. Jesus had come, riding a donkey, the ancient sign of a king’s entry. In chapters 13-17, in a lot of words and actions, Jesus teaches his disciples, washes their feet, fingers Judas as his betrayer, though that hasn’t happened yet, predicts Peter’s denial of his Lord, and prays for his disciples and for those whom the disciples, his students, will touch with the good news of Jesus, all those words were spoken before he was crucified.
What would his disciples have felt hearing these words? Confusion and dread about what this going to the Father might mean? Disbelief from Peter when his denial was predicted? And then reassurance that Jesus prayed for them, prayed for their protection, prayed that others might believe through them and that all those might be one with him, just as the Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in the Father. And how did they remember to write it down, so long after the fact of it’s happening, when the Gospel was written? How did they remember those words when they did not understand them?
Maybe the remembering part was something like this: Some of you know that I am an author as well as a long- distance hiker. So I understand at least a little bit, about writing things. When I wrote my second book, I sent it to a friend to read and make comments, hopefully to make the book better. Now, any author has a fairly big ego to think they have anything important enough to write about. And it is difficult for me, or anyone really, to take criticism, even constructive criticism we ask for. She sent me her criticisms, carefully thought out, and I stewed, mentally and internally for a couple of weeks over the comments she sent me about my writing. What should I do with them? And then, what were just the right memories from my past history flooded into my brain and I knew what to do and what to write. My book became much better for the criticism, and my resurrected memories put my words in context, though I had not thought about those memories for years. Sometimes criticism brings out the best in us, in spite of us.
I think the Gospels are a little like that. They were not written for years after the time when the events took place. Jesus’ disciples did not get it, at least not at the time the words were spoken. But then, years later, after Jesus’ death and resurrection and a lot of study of their scriptures and stewing about what had happened, which seemed impossible, then they remembered, and wrote those words down.
This high priestly prayer of Jesus before the crucifixion is passed down to us, to you and to me, for we are learners too. We don’t always get it right the first time we hear or read scripture. But we also are Jesus’ dear ones. He prayed for us, included us in this prayer.
Think about that. The work of Father, Son and Holy Sprit did not stop with creation. It did not stop with kings and prophets in the Old Testament. It did not stop with Jesus’ death, nor even with the appearance of the resurrected Jesus. The work of God did not stop with one disciple leaving to go his own way, as some translations say about Judas. The work of God does not stop between regularly called pastors. The work of God keeps going. Even going to you and me and through you and me.
The work of God kept going through Saul in our first reading, Saul, who tried to destroy early followers of the way of Jesus, and yet became Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, which included you and me. The work of God and the promise of Jesus’ presence, even when it seemed impossible, kept going through early persecutions and the death of those who followed the way of Jesus, whose robes were washed in blood as our second reading says. The Gospel of God’s love and the oneness that we know in Jesus Christ came over centuries through countless billions of people to you and to me.
Jesus did not just pray for the disciples that lived in his time and were with him in that upper room. He prayed for us that we may be one, that Jesus lives in you and in me and in those we will touch with his dear love as well. The Easter stories do not stop though this is the last Sunday in the Easter season. The Easter stories blend into the work of the Holy Spirit over thousands of years until now and on into forever.
I think back to those first disciples, those who heard Jesus’ high priestly prayer in person and those who believed the stories they heard from them, from the earliest witnesses to the resurrection, that Jesus and the Father were one and they also were one with them.
The strongest argument for the resurrection, it has always seemed to me, is the witness and change that came over the disciples who had seen Jesus raised. They were not a particularly brave bunch of folks. They had often misunderstood what Jesus said to them. They probably did not understand much in this prayer at the time Jesus prayed it. But they remembered it.
And after the resurrection, they lived it. Those words guided their actions. They became incredibly brave. They became fearless. The threat of death could not stop them from sharing the good news of Christ Jesus with others around them. Nothing much explains that change in their lives and attitudes and actions, except the resurrection and the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. They became on fire with the Gospel, the good news that God loved them, loved Jesus, through death and beyond. And they and we are one with Jesus and the Father. Jesus said so, prayed so.
These scriptures fit for the 7th Sunday of Easter. The resurrection is celebrated in the lives of disciples, learners, those who do not get it right away, those for whom Jesus prayed, his dear ones, numbering like myriads of stars over time until today, including you and me. So, what do we do now?
Since I retired, I have walked up and down America three times and all the way across America coast to coast on long distance trails, sometimes praying, listening, even preaching, as the occasion arose. And I have written books of my observations. My books are not how to hike books although there is a lot of how to do it in the books. There is also some of my faith and a sprinkling of theology, meant for those who are a bit allergic to talking about faith. I wrote, hoping to hoodwink my readers into considering faith along with hiking.
And you, what are you called to do? You have a mission to share God’s love for all people, with all people and the Holy Spirit is still here to lead you. Times have changed since Jesus’ prayer, but Jesus and the prayer have not changed. God is not finished being one with you. You are Jesus’ witnesses, dearly beloved disciples, who will call someone to guide you past your past to look to where your future leads you.
Easter does not stop. Jesus lives. New life is before you. Jesus prayed for you and those whom you will touch with God’s own love to tell them that they are Jesus’ dear ones too. May Jesus and the Father live in you and you in them. May your joy and the joy of Jesus multiply and be complete now and forever.
Thanks be to God. Amen.