Faith Daily | 19 May 2021

PRAYER of the DAY - EASTER SEVEN APBA p519

O God,

you withdraw from our sight

that you may be known by our love:

help us to enter the cloud where you are hidden,

and to surrender all our certainty

to the darkness of faith

in Jesus Christ.

Amen.

GOSPEL for the Day: John 17: 11-19

11And 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. 12While 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 scripture might be fulfilled. 13But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.14I have 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. 15I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.16They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

GOSPEL Reflection: Contributed by Neville Eckersley

In this passage we have his prayer for us, his followers, whom he called no longer servants but “friends” (John 15:15).

He is very aware that his time with his disciples is now short as his own arrest and trial is rapidly approaching. Characteristically he is thinking of the dangers to his “friends” and not those terrible ones he himself is about to face within hours. As the Christian martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Jesus was the man for others.”

Jesus prays that we who follow him will be unified, just as he and the Father are (v11). He prays also that we will have his joy, something we may not think about very often – the joy of knowing God Himself and working with Him on the most important issues in human life and history. He is very aware that there will be opposition from the evil one and the rebel world which opposes God and His purposes and loves darkness instead of light.

Lastly in our text, Jesus prays that we who faithfully follow him will be made holy by the truth of the message we are demonstrating throughout our lives. To do this he consecrates himself (v 19).

Saint Paul noted that Jesus continues this prayer as he “is at the right hand of God and indeed intercedes for us” (Romans 8:34).

Let us thank God for such a great, continuing and beautiful prayer of Jesus!

FINAL PRAYER: Pentecost Prayer from Dorothy McRae-McMahon

Be alive among us this day, Jesus Christ,

drawing all eyes towards your word as it is revealed before us,

opening all ears as your Spirit speaks into our hearts

and moving within our lives in ways that touch us deeply

so that we bow in humble faith before your holiness.

Come to us now, we pray, O God.

Amen