You discover a lot about someone when you see how they behave and react under pressure.  That’s when you see the real man or the real woman.  And one of the things that Jesus does just before He’s about to be crucified, is that He prays.  Question is – who or what does He pray for?  Now that’s an interesting question, because the answer tells us an awful lot about Jesus.

Prayer is something that most of us, well we don’t have time for, right? I mean life’s busy, we’re under pressure and so we’re just flat out getting through life. The idea of spending twenty minutes or half an hour or maybe even an hour praying each day, well I guess that’s nice, maybe it’s good for the minister to pray every day, I mean after all it’s what we pay him for but me, I’m just under too much pressure, I don’t have time.

And you know when we’re in a difficult place if we do pray then the things that we’re praying fervently about are the things that are putting us under pressure. If it’s a financial thing we pray for that. If it’s our children we pray for them. Whatever’s affecting our little world that’s where the focus of our prayer is. Imploring God, make a difference, fix this up.

Now there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, we should take our problems and our pressures to God, we should lay them at His feet and ask Him for His help, all good. That’s why when Jesus prays just before He’s about to be handed over and crucified, that’s why this pray completely blows me out of the water. John chapter 17.

The theologians call it the “high priestly” prayer. Bit much for me. Here is Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of man, praying to His Father in heaven just before He’s about to be nailed to that cross. What do we imagine He’s praying about? Who or what is He praying for?

I know who I’d be praying for I have to tell you if I were in His shoes. So let’s go and have a listen, it’s rather a long prayer but it’s a beautiful one and it’s worth eavesdropping to see who or what He prayed for. Come on, let’s have a listen and carefully, who’s He actually praying for?

After Jesus had spoken these words He looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hours come, glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you. Since you have given Him authority over all people to give eternal life to all whom you have given Him. And this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you sent.

I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now Father glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed. I have made your name known to those whom you gave to me from the beginning from the world. They were yours and you gave them to me and they have kept your word.

Now they know that everything you have given me is from you for the words that you gave to me I have given to them and they have received them and they know in truth that I came from you and they have believed that you sent me. I’m asking you on their behalf, I’m not asking on behalf of the world but on behalf of those whom you gave me because they’re yours. All mine are yours and yours are mine and I have been glorified in them.

And now I’m no longer in the world but they are in the world and I’m 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. While 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 Scriptures might be fulfilled.

But now I’m coming to you and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I’ve 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. I’m not asking you to take them out of the world but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.

So they do not belong to the world just as I don’t belong to the world. Sanctify them in your truth, your word is truth as you have sent me into the world so I have sent them into the world and for their sakes I sanctify myself so that they also may be sanctified in the truth.

I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word that they may be all one. As you Father are in me and I am in you may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them so that they may be one as we are one. I in them and you in me, they may be completely one so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.

Father, I desire that those also whom you have given to me may be with me where I am to see my glory which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father the world doesn’t know you but I know you and these know you that you have sent me. I made your name known to them. I will make it known so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.’

So, a long prayer but who’s He praying for? Well for His disciples and not just for His disciples back then but actually for us here and now. Very specifically, did you pick that up? Let’s have another look, verse 20:

I ask not just on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may also be one.

Well we’ve believed in Jesus through the word of the disciples so Jesus is praying for us quite specifically here. Jesus is praying for you and for me. Friend I love doing what I do. I love being part of bringing the word of God to you and I’m so blessed in the knowledge that from time to time in different people’s lives God uses the foolishness I preach to transform them.

Truly I’ve dedicated my life to that BUT I have to be honest here, I am struggling to imagine myself on death row about to be nailed to a cross praying for you instead of me. Do you get my point? Maybe the Spirit of God will fill me in a way where I could do that but I have to be honest here I’m thinking I’d probably be praying about saving my own skin.

And yet here Jesus, just before He’s about to suffer the most gruesome death, is praying for you and for me. And what’s He praying? That God would protect us from the evil one so that you and I could be one just as Jesus and the Father are one.

You discover what’s in a man’s heart when you see how he reacts under pressure. The real man, the real woman comes out when we’re under pressure. And here we discover the real Jesus. Jesus is so passionate about you and me, so passionate about making us one with Him and with the Father, so passionate about uniting us in His body the Church as one that He would lay down His life to achieve that passion.

Just stop and think about that for a moment, let it sink in. If someone said, “Would the real Jesus please stand up?”, well here in John chapter 17 in this beautiful prayer, this is where we discover the real Jesus, the heart of God beating. Glory for Him isn’t about being on a throne, being glorified is about being nailed to a cross so that you and I could be part of His glory.

Do you see how sad it is when we just breeze through Easter as though it’s just another holiday or maybe a religious festival? I’ve heard the story so many times, I mean I know how it ends but do you see the tragedy of that? Of missing the heart of God, of missing what Jesus is all about in coming to be a man to suffer and to die and to rise again. Because there’s a point to it all.

That we are invited to a completely new life, a life based on the sacrifice of Jesus that includes being one with God with an intimacy that we could never have imagined. Just in the same way as Jesus and the Father are one.

It includes a unity and a fellowship and a family of God’s people being one with them. It includes beholding the glory of God for all eternity, being with Jesus where He is forever. That’s why Jesus went to the cross. That’s why we celebrate Easter. That’s why sailing through as though it’s just another holiday is such a tragedy.