John 17:6-11, 17 (NIV) 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. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
“Hey, let’s be careful out there” is police Sgt. Phil Esterhaus’ classic one liner from the television show Hill Street Blues (1981-1987). “Out there” for us is the possibility of sudden death, or lingering illness. “Out there” is the possibility of losing a job, or being passed over for a promotion. “Out there” is the possibility of being rejected and of being alone, or of being swallowed up by a competitive world. “Out there” is where feelings of anger, fear, and guilt often get a hold in our life and slowly release their poison. We have been told not to expect any special favors from God “out there,” and that our faith does not spare us from pain and problems. All of this is true, but it is only half true.
During those last days in Jerusalem, Jesus prayed for His disciples. The prayer clearly included protection for the disciples. Jesus was not spared conflict, trouble, pain, and death, yet He clearly expected God to give the disciples protection. The protection is not that of escaping life’s trouble and pain, or that we be spared from trouble and pain. Jesus knows the stuff you and I are made of, that there are limits to the trials and troubles we can deal with, and that there is one who seeks to use the trial to drive a wedge between God and us.
The prayer is for protection of God’s presence with us, that no misfortune, or illness, or distress will have power over us to destroy our relationship to God, to break the back of our confidence in God’s goodness and power. We are limited, yes. We are weak, yes. We are disposed to illness, and doomed to die. Yet, God is for us. Distress and trouble may temporarily hide that truth from us, but does not change it. Troubles and distress are always temporary. God is permanent. He does not always deliver us from difficulties and distress, but He never abandons us to them. “Sanctify them by the truth.” Jesus is praying that the spreading of God’s truth be our reflex response to difficulties and distress. That the spreading of God’s truth will stabilize us, enable us to cope. God has built into us the strength of His truth. It is sometimes battered, but never destroyed.
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope October 13, 1985
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell
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