NOTES for Joh 17:1-26
1 These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: |
2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. |
3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. |
4 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. |
5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. |
6 I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. |
7 Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. |
8 For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. |
9 I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. |
10 And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. |
11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. |
12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. |
13 And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. |
14 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. |
15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. |
16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. |
17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. |
18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. |
19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. |
20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; |
21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. |
22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: |
23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. |
24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. |
25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. |
26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. |
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The prayer Jesus offers for His disciples sums up everything said during the Last Supper. It is usually called the prayer for unity, and one can undoubtedly agree with this. Yet it concerns not only outward unity. Jesus again asks the Father to preserve between Him and His disciples the same union that He has with the Father (vv. 21-23). Apparently no testimony is possible without such unity; without it the world will not believe that the apostles truly were sent into the world by the Savior Himself.
Yet bearing witness to the Kingdom and revealing the Kingdom to the world are precisely the chief task of those who are sent. Addressing the Father, Jesus in a sense hands over to the apostles the mission the Father entrusted to Him, while entrusting the apostles themselves to the Father. He says: I have given the life of the Kingdom that You gave Me to everyone who wished to receive it; I have accomplished everything You entrusted to Me (vv. 1-5). I revealed Myself, You, and Your Kingdom to those whom You sent Me, and they accepted everything (vv. 6-8). And now, Jesus says, I am leaving while they remain, and I pray for them, for those who belong to You (vv. 9-11).
Such a request was entirely natural, for the apostles were now becoming witnesses to the Kingdom about which Jesus had previously spoken to the world, and the apostolic community was to become the nucleus of the Church. Previously Jesus Himself had kept His disciples safe in a world hostile to them. Now, as He goes to the Father, He asks the Father to help the apostles preserve the joy of the Kingdom that they knew during the Savior's earthly ministry (vv. 12-13). This does not mean removing the apostles from the world to some other, special reality. The Kingdom had to be revealed here, not somewhere on another planet or in another dimension (vv. 14-16). But to reveal it, the apostolic community had to be sanctified by receiving the fullness of God's living revelation, which the Savior Himself embodied (v. 17). Only then could the apostles become witnesses to the Kingdom and their community the nucleus of the Church, whose very purpose would be to preserve the Kingdom in our still not fully transformed world and bear witness to it. This nucleus would grow, and the Church would expand, including everyone who sought the Kingdom and eternal life (vv. 18-21).
Readings for 30 July 2026
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