I See Jesus the High Priest

 March 27 2022

John 17

Have you ever thought how every age has its catchphrase? I was thinking about this because it seems like everywhere you turn on social media somebody is using the phrase “they understood the assignment” or some variation of it. Now, it never is clear just what the “assignment” exactly is, but from certain pictures and memes it can be seen that some people understood the assignment and some people did not. I am left wondering just how do we know when somebody has understood the assignment, where is the scorecard that lets us evaluate a person’s behavior and what does it have on it that lets us know, that, yup, that guy has definitely not understood the assignment. 

In the seventeenth chapter of John, we find Jesus praying to his Heavenly Father, before the watchful eyes and ears of his disciples. In this intimate moment we hear Jesus state that he has, in our vernacular, “understood the assignment”. He proclaims that the assignment, the work that he was sent to do, he understood it completely and not only that he also accomplished that work proving that he did indeed understand the assignment. What we cannot forget in this moment was that one of the followers of Jesus did not feel the same way and I’m sure if we could know the innermost thoughts of Judas he would most assuredly hold that Jesus was one who had totally not understood the assignment. Perhaps Judas felt that Jesus just needed a little incentive to help him understand what the assignment was all about; we will never know. All we do know is that even before his death on the cross, here we have Jesus stating that he has understood the assignment, the work that he left his home in glory to do, this is what he has accomplished. The question that must linger in our minds then is do we understand the assignment? Do we know that yes, Jesus did know what the assignment is and that he accomplished it, proving that he did understand because only if we do will we be able to understand the assignment that he has given to us.

You see, the assignment given to Jesus by his Heavenly Father was to give eternal life to those whom the Father had given to him. Jesus goes on to explain that this eternal life is that his disciples know the only true God, and Jesus Christ who has been sent to us from heaven. Here we must pause for a moment to hear what Jesus is saying to us. It is Jesus who has made known to us the true God, the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the God who Jesus has revealed to us and because it is Jesus who is the one who has come to us with this true understanding of who God is then it just figures that we must know him as well. We have to never forget that we cannot know anything about our Heavenly Father nor the Holy Ghost apart from knowing Jesus. This knowing the true God and Jesus who reveals this God to us, this Jesus lets us know the life that has existed for all eternity. This helps us to grasp that what Jesus means when he says that he revealed to us the one true God is that what is important for us to understand is the eternal life of God. So, this also means that when Jesus speaks about knowing he isn’t telling us that we are to know statements about God but rather we are to know God through the very life of God demonstrated to us byJesus. Through our encounter with Jesus we know the unchangeable nature of God, his steadfast character. We have to make sure that we understand that this is where Jesus is headed because otherwise we will be seriously confused when he states that he has manifested the name of his Heavenly Father to the people which the Heavenly Father had given Jesus from out of the world. What does Jesus mean when he says that he has shed some light on the very name of God? Well, this mention of the name of God should make us remember a very important encounter that Moses had with God concerning once again the name of God. This story is found in the thirty-fourth chapter of Exodus. There we find Moses up on Mount Sinai pleading with God after the people of Israel have angered God with their worship of the golden calf. What Moses wants to see is God’s glory but what God tells Moses is that he  instead will make all of his goodness pass before Moses and then God states that he would also proclaim his name to Moses. So, here we find several connections with this story of Moses and the story of the last prayer of Jesus with his disciples. Jesus asks for his Heavenly Father to bring his glory upon the life of Jesus and just as in the case of Moses, the subject turns to the name of God. Well, God does just as he promised Moses, he passes by Moses and proclaims his name letting Moses know that he is the God who is to be known as the God who is merciful and gracious, the God who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. This is the unchanging character of God, the very character of God that Jesus brought to light in our dark world.

What is interesting about the name of God that was shown to the disciples of Jesus is that a short-hand version of this name is found in the first chapter of John’s gospel. This shouldn’t surprise us because as we have gone through John’s gospel we find that John brings forth ideas he introduces in the first chapter such as the Lamb of God and Son of Man into his story, again and again. Yet one phrase from the first chapter has not really been brought forth until this last prayer of Jesus. This phrase is that “we have seen the glory of Jesus, glory of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Once again, here is this idea of glory and here we find the phrase, “grace and truth”. If you study the Hebrew and Greek languages, you can see that grace is the best equivalent in the Greek language for the Hebrew word for steadfast love. In a similar manner, truth is the best way to translate the Hebrew word for faithfulness. While this is most certainly true, I cannot help believe that John is stating something more when he uses the phrase, “grace and truth”, for what is known in the Old Testament as “steadfast love and faithfulness”. John had experienced the steadfast love of God through the life of Jesus as grace, as the acceptance and welcome and favor of God that allows us to know ourselves as the very children of God. This is what John writes in the third chapter of his first letter, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” Yes, the love of our Father is a steadfast love but how do we experience that love, in a personal way? We experience that love as grace, as God’s favor toward us that welcomes us into the Father’s house and allows us to experience the same relationship with our Heavenly Father that Jesus Christ has experienced for all eternity.

In the same way, God is, of course known as a God of extreme faithfulness in his dealings with his people throughout the Old Testament. This is the same faithfulness we find in the life of Jesus yet we experience this faithfulness as the truth. What we have to understand about this word, “truth”, is that in the original Greek the word did not necessarily mean a statement that has been proven to be verifiable, but instead truth meant reality, what is real. When John writes in his first letter, the second chapter, that the new commandment that Jesus has given to us is true in Jesus, what John is saying is that the love Jesus loves us with is an unshakeable reality. This is how the faithfulness of God is experienced when we encounter the life of Jesus.

So, when, in the seventeenth chapter of John, we hear Jesus say that he has brought to light the very name of God, I believe that John wants us to know that what Jesus is speaking about is what John has already written about in the first chapter, grace and truth.  It is this grace and truth that describes the very life of Jesus because he was one with the life of his Heavenly Father. The disciples knew the truth of God’s grace, through the reality of the life of Jesus. They knew that Jesus had indeed proceeded from the Father in heaven. Who was it that knew all of this about Jesus? The ones who knew Jesus in this intimate way were those who treasured the word, the commandment of God to love one another as Jesus had loved them. These were the ones who had their hearts washed clean from their desires for earthly treasures through the love which compelled Jesus to leave the highest heavens to condescend to the very depths of the dirt of earth, to come as one of us, to serve and to give his very life for those he considered his treasures. This is what we discover in the thirteenth chapter of John. So, here we see how the story John is telling us progresses because now that his disciples treasure the one who treasures them in heaven, they become those who treasure, or keep, his command to love one another.

Jesus prays to his Holy Father asking that his Holy Father keep these ones that Jesus loves in his name, the name that was given to Jesus by his Father. When Jesus asks his Father to “keep” his disciples he is asking his Heavenly Father to guard them, keep watch over them, and to do so by placing them in the reality where grace is alive and active. It is God’s steadfast love which we experience as grace, as the very favor and welcome of God, this is what must be the reality that our Father must provide for us if we are to remain united. Here again, John is reminding us of what we have learned in the tenth chapter, that as there is one shepherd there shall be one flock. Here in the seventeenth chapter, this same call for unity is heard from Jesus, how this unity will be possible when we are guarded over by the name of God, kept watch over by the grace and truth that has always been who God is. When we understand that this is what Jesus asks our Heavenly Father to give us, then he promises us that when we are guarded over by the grace of our Heavenly Father then we will have the fullness of the joy of Jesus in our life together. We have to ask ourselves just what is the connection here between living in the reality of God’s grace and experiencing a life full of the joy of Jesus? The answer, I believe comes to us from the sixth chapter of the book of Numbers, where the Lord spoke to Moses saying to him that he should instruct his brother Aaron, the High Priest, that he was to bless the people, saying to them, “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you; the Lord’s face show you his favor and give you peace.’ God then tells Moses that in this way the High Priest will put the name of God upon his people and bless them. When you here these words does it become a little clearer why this prayer of Jesus is called the High Priestly prayer? I mean, this blessing is that God keep his people, just as Jesus prays for his disciples.  The blessing also states that God be gracious unto his people just as we learn that grace is part of the name of God. Through this grace we understand that the love of God shows us favor and when all this is known by us then how can we not have peace? So, back to our text in the seventeenth chapter of John, where Jesus tells us that when his prayer is answered we will have joy, the answer to the source of this joy is that as the blessing of Aaron tells us, we live before the shining face of God. The favor of God toward us is written all over his face. In other words, his joy of having us in his presence is the very source of our joy. This is how, in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews that Jesus was able to endure the cross because of this very joy that awaited him after his death when he once again could bask in the glow of his Father’s face. 

What is important about us being joyful people becomes evident in what follows after Jesus speaks about this joy in his prayer. From this point on is when Jesus speaks of his disciples interaction with the world. The world, Jesus says, is going to hate you; how are you going to respond? Our answer is joy. The world is still under the sway of the evil one, what will keep you safe? Our answer is joy. Our joy comes from our life lived before the face of God upon which is expressed his love and favor of us, and here belonging to him in this way the only words we hear and follow are the words this face speaks to us. What sets us apart from the world, what gives us a quality of holiness which mimics the very holiness of our Heavenly Father is that we live in the reality, this truth where the word of God his commandment to love is being lived out before his face.

The whole importance of our being gracious people who know that we have a Heavenly Father who watches over us, a Heavenly Father who is gracious to us, a Heavenly Father whose favor is written all over his face, and in whose presence we experience a peace which is out of this world, is not just so that we can hole up and keep this experience to ourselves. We don’t build compounds to hunker down and wait for Jesus to come back! No, we go out into the world as transformed people so the world through us might believe that Jesus is the one who has come to us from the Father so that everyone might know the unchanging nature of our God and be welcomed into the very life of heaven. The reason why we needed to be cleansed of our desire for worldly treasures is so not only would we treasure the one who treasures us in heaven but that this treasure might be seen to be living in us. Jesus prays to his Heavenly Father to give us his glory, can you believe that? Yet this honor is not for us but this glory is given so people will know that Jesus came from heaven and our life is anchored there. The glory of God is that he is a God of dynamic oneness, moving earthward intersecting our lives pulling us in so that together we might also experience a life of oneness as well. As we see a world fractured in horrible, terrible ways is it any wonder that our greatest witness to the world that we have been blessed by Jesus our High Priest is a life where we are united together. Ours is a life where we watch over one another just as God is watching over us; ours is a life where we are gracious unto others, showing the love of God by welcoming others into the family of God to live before his face; ours is a life of peace knowing that before that face upon which the favor of God is written we know that we can rest, God can handle whatever comes at us. Do you begin to see how such a life can be a life of blessing? This is a life that displays the unchanging characteristics of the God we profess to believe, a life of grace and truth. In this life we, as the people of God, can live as one.

So, now do you understand the assignment? Or perhaps a better question is that as we live our lives before others, do they say that, yes, we do understand the assignment? Jesus our High Priest has blessed us and has made a way for us to live before the face of God so that his joy might abound in us. With this joy bubbling over our life we watch over others, we lead with grace and and we rest before the face of God, because this is what knowing the life of God is all about. I pray that  the blessing of Jesus our High Priest be upon all of us as we travel the road to Calvary this Lenten season. Amen!