Praying for the glory

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Cruising the gospel – John 17:24-26

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Sharing what he wants

17:24-26 – If these verses do not astound you, you need to pay closer attention to what Jesus is saying. Let’s break the material down to consider it carefully. The first thing to note is that Jesus is not conversing with his followers here, he’s speaking with his Father. He’s not asking for strength during his coming ordeal on the cross, instead he’s just telling his heavenly Dad what he wants. And the first thing that comes to mind is that he wants his followers to be with him where he is and to see his glory. Well, they are with him, he’s in the upper room in Jerusalem and so are they.

Seeing the glory

But do they see his glory? No, I don’t think they do – not yet, not fully. Peter, James and John had been with Jesus on the mountain and had seen and heard what happened there. But they didn’t understand what was really going on. Peter, always the practical doer, was going to build three shelters. James might have had more intuition about it, but I imagine John would have got closer than the other two. John was the disciple ‘Jesus loved’, he viewed things from a more spiritual dimension, it was his nature to dwell on spiritual truth and look for hidden depths of meaning.

I think John is already aware that Jesus thinks of himself as Yahweh’s Son, he’s referred to himself as the Son, and he often talks about ‘My Father’. And I suspect John understood that was an eternal relationship. Jesus spells it out again here in the Garden as he prays to his Father. The Father loved him before the world was created and loves him still. And I imagine for John it was not too great a leap to see that this love is eternal and will remain even after the end of time itself. And in verse 26 Jesus says to his Father that he has made his followers aware that the Father has sent him (Jesus), that he’ll continue to show them that so the Father’s love will be in them and so that Jesus himself will be in them too.

Does this take us back to Jesus in glory on the mountain? Yes, I think it does! And John must have understood that if Jesus is in him, that he too must have been gloriously transformed on the mountain, so that he, John, can also talk freely with Moses concerning law and with Elijah concerning prophecy. If Jesus is in John and is glorified, John shares in that glory too! Even if John doesn’t fully grasp what exactly the glory is, he certainly grasps that through Jesus that glory is already in him and raises him to the giddy heights of the law and the prophetic.

And this is where we all stand if Christ is in us. We just need to see, as John did, that the glory arrives when Jesus does, that we share in him and in his glory permanently. So when my body dies (as it must) I continue to live gloriously because Jesus is in me. I’m sure Peter and James came to understand this too, certainly at Pentecost if not before. That was the moment when Jesus’ glory was fully revealed to the entire church, not just in theory but in full experience.

This was a moment they had been told to wait for, but when it came it was far beyond what they had imagined or expected.

See also:

• Transfiguration, Luke 9:28-36 – Bible Gateway
• Transfiguration, Mark 9:2-13 – Bible Gateway
• Transfiguration, Matthew 17:1-8 – Bible Gateway
• In Christ: Meaning and implications – C S Lewis Institute

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