Thursday Reflection February 3, 2022

Thursday Reflection February 3, 2022

Protected by God

And 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. John 17:11 NRSV https://bible.com/bible/2016/jhn.17.11.NRSV

Good day friends,

Jesus was making final preparations before his crucifixion. After sharing in the Last Supper with His disciples He began to tell them what will happen to him and gave them the promise of the Holy Spirit. He also spoke of the importance of remianing connected to him, the True Vine, whilst noting that the world will hate them. There other lessons Jesus taught them leading up to Chapter 17.

When we reach chapter 17, we see Jesus praying for his disciples. He knew he wasn’t going to be there to protect them, so He asked the Lord to protect them against the evil one and not only his disciples present at that time, but also all who would come to accept him as their personal saviour. Friends, as we look as Jesus’s prayer in chapter 17 and more specifically verse 11 there are a few things that stand out that I want to point out.

The world we live in

Jesus knew that He was leaving and that the world that his disciples presently lived was not their own as stated in verses 14 & 16. It was governed by the evil one, Satan. Satan uses various tricks or guises to trick the world and ultimately turn them away from God. We know the challenges of living in this world. We see the evidence of it on the news, in our communities and almost everywhere we look. But Jesus here prays for protection.

Protection
Jesus asked the Lord to protect his disciples whilst in this world, especially from the evil one. This text is interesting, because we view protection primarily from a physiological point of view, like when Jesus says protect us from the evil one. But in this text, Jesus alludes to much more than that. In verse 13, the joy of Jesus being made complete in us is mentioned. The thing about fear or insecurity is that it takes away our joy. When we feel secure and safe we have joy. But here Jesus says complete Joy comes from him.

Protection also comes from being sanctified or set apart in the Word which Jesus says is truth in verse 17. Security also comes from knowing the word of God which is truth. Let us put it another way. The Gospel of John says in chapter 1, “In the beginning was the word and word was with God and the word was God.” Also in St. John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life”. So when Jesus says, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” Jesus is saying set them apart in me. The more we know about the word of God the more we know about Jesus and the more we know about Jesus, the more we feel secured in all circumstances.

So that we might be one
All of this is being done so that we can have a shared identity. People tend to gravitate to those they can relate to and this gives them strength. Being alone might make us very afraid, but having company make us feel less afraid and the more company we have the less afraid we become. Here Jesus is asking God to protect all of us, so that we can have that shared commonality and operate as one. When we operate as one we give support to each other like how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit give support to each other.

Friends we are protected by God so that we can have joy and be set apart in Jesus, protected from the evil one and operating as one.

Shalom

Christopher Euphfa