Jesus prays for you
Key texts: John 17:1-11, 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11, The Collect for the Seventh Sunday of Easter, preached May 24, 2020
Today’s collect: “Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before…”
Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us… Exalt us?
Man, I’d love to just get through the next few months unscathed!
Our first reading today- from 1 Peter:
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. (There’s that word EXALT again!) Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.
A roaring lion sounds scary- yet I get it. There are things prowling around us, seeking to pull us away from the exalted and victorious status God desires for us through our life in Christ. We must resist those lions… those evils- that threaten to grab us and devour us.
Piper has been on a Harry Potter jag. Read book one, watch movie one, etc. She is on book 6 as of this morning, and I’m catching movie scenes here and there of those frightening dementors. These fictional creatures that want to get close to you and kiss you with a kiss that removes your soul. As they get near, happiness fades away. Awful. Dementors are made-up, pretend creatures- thank goodness! And while lions are real, none have been seen lately in Glenwood. Yet the evil powers that threaten do exist here, where we are.
Most threatening are the fears that turn outward into blame and scapegoating, the hubris that denies the vulnerability of our health system, our bodies, our community, the evil of resorting to violence of any sort - physical, spoken- because our other resources, especially clear communication and integrity, have waned thin. These are not fictional evils, these really exist. For some, they threaten to zap our happiness — to endanger the joy-filled core of our being.
Here is what else is not fictional:
Jesus’ love for us.
Jesus’ concern for our wellbeing.
Jesus’ commitment to intercede for us.
In John 17, Jesus prays to God on our behalf and says:
“I told them all about you. I described what you love, what you hate, what your character is and is not for them. I explored your character and nature with the people you gave to me, who were always yours to begin with, then you shared them with me. And these people- they have done what you said. They know now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, That everything you gave me is firsthand from you, For the message you gave me, I gave them; And they took it, and were convinced That I came from you. They believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I’m not praying for the God-rejecting world but for those you gave me, for they are yours by right. Everything mine is yours, and yours mine, and my life is on display in them. For I’m no longer going to be visible in the world; they’ll continue in the world while I return to you. Holy Father, guard them as they pursue this life that you conferred as a gift through me, so they can be one heart and mind as we are one heart and mind.”
(From Eugene Peterson’s The Message)
THEY & THEM- which is US! Jesus is praying for them, which means that Jesus is praying for you, and me. That is an aspect of the character of the Body of Christ alive and active in this world full of prowling lions and dementors and scapegoating and violence! We are being prayed for by Jesus himself. Absorb that truth: Jesus is praying for you today, Jesus is praying for you. That you and God may become one. That you may know true and unending union with God, yes after you die, and also, right now, right here, in this earthly life.
This prayer binds us as a community, just as it has bound us together to pray for each household of the congregation over the last six weeks. We finish up our parish household prayer cycle this week in time for Pentecost on May 31st. Throughout our celebration of Eastertide, as physical group worship gatherings and Holy Eucharist are suspended in our community, we are becoming one with the risen Lord, one with others into the Body of Christ, the resurrected Body of Christ, by praying for one another, by being prayed for, in community with the other households in the congregation, and most importantly, by being the recipients of Jesus’ prayers. We have prayed each day, Monday through Friday, for the households who call St. Andrew’s their spiritual home, and we have strengthened our bonds with one another and with God as we pray together for households from A- Z, or rather in our congregation, from Alec & Betty Adams to Sara Yoe, with all the Edgerton-Birds, Jacobs, Oddoyes, and Teagues in between. We are praying for all 175 households and their members by name throughout Eastertide as a celebration of Christ’s power over us, over this world, over death, as a triumphant proclamation of how we can be held together as the Body of Christ in the face of struggle, change, loss and suffering.
Prayer attaches us to one another and to God, drawing us into that oneness, that union. Prayer gets us away from the evil lions and dementors that wish to divide us and conquer us. Prayer enfolds us with God’s protective love and grace, cementing strong bonds like sinews that wrap around us to guard us against all that threatens to divide us. When we pray for others, we are blessing them, inviting God to draw us all together in God’s love, and we are being blessed, receiving that powerful love and loading up on its very real existence among us, by the grace of God. While not able to stand together praying for one another in body, even still, we become the body of Christ, praying for one another as Jesus himself prayed for us. When we are connected to Jesus and to one another through prayer, we have the confidence to move through the unknown, the frightening, the strange new realities we face.
One of my great parenting failures was to taker a six-year-old on the (then) new Harry Potter ride in Orlando. I thought I’d be able to hold her hand, and we would be okay, because she could close her eyes and I’d be next to her. Little did I know that once they load people on the ride, the seats pull apart into individual riders careening through space as dementors weave around menacingly! I couldn’t touch her, I couldn’t hold her hand. It was so frightening for both of us, much more so for the six year old! We’ve been on the same ride since, and at age 10, after reading the books and seeing the movie, it was an entirely different experience. It was exciting, and she rode it multiple times and found it thrilling.
Not all of the frightening moments of life will be thrilling, yet they become bearable. The more I spend time studying scripture with others, the more time I pray, the more I pay attention to what is real and what is fake, the more I acquaint myself with what is good, truly and deeply good in this world, the more I can breathe through and move through times of great stress and anxiety with a sense of God’s unfailing presence.
Unlike the Harry Potter ride, we can not be divided or separated from God and one another.
Prayer unites us. We may look separated in the flesh, yet in spirit we are united in Christ. Feel the hand of our loving God holding onto yours, the presence that is God-with-you Emmanuel, moving through all of your experiences. Feel the community of St. Andrew’s praying for you. And remember: Jesus is praying for you, too.
