Photo: Bokeh / Tomedia. Reflections in Calm Water.
Okay, Church Tom is back.
I started this series with Stop Domesticating God, then did the very on-brand thing of continuing to take notes while failing to turn them into articles. There are now quite a few. Apparently writing something down and actually processing it are separate jobs.
One of the more recent sermons stopped me with something I probably should have thought about properly by now.
Jesus prays for us.
I knew Jesus prayed. I knew he taught people how to pray. But I had mostly filed those things under examples for me to follow. Jesus going away to pray, Jesus in the garden, the Lord’s Prayer. Things I should pay attention to because, honestly, I don’t pray enough.
Then we read John 17.
We are included in the prayer
Jesus is praying before his arrest. He prays for his disciples, for their protection and for their unity. Then, in John 17:20–21, he includes the people who will believe through their message.
Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; 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.
That reaches beyond the people standing around him at the time. It includes believers who haven’t been born yet. People who will hear about him through somebody else, who heard through somebody else.
People like us.
I found that quite difficult to get past. I spend so much time thinking about what I need to say to God that I barely think about Jesus speaking for me.
And the prayer is specific. He wants those people to be one. He wants them with him. He wants them to know the Father’s love. Reading it, I don’t get the impression of somebody reluctantly agreeing to tolerate us.
My brain immediately makes it complicated
Naturally, my notes then go straight into the Trinity.
If Jesus is God, and the Father is God, why is Jesus praying to the Father? How does intercession work within one God? What does being at God’s right hand mean?
I managed to turn a comforting sermon into several theological questions. Very efficient of me.
Christian belief holds together one God and the distinction between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I can say that sentence. I am considerably less capable of explaining everything it means. These notes are me trying to understand it, and I don’t want to pretend that a quick analogy has settled the whole thing.
What I can follow is the direction of the passage. Jesus wants us close to the Father. His prayer expresses love for us. There is no suggestion that the Father has to be tricked into caring.
Romans 8:31–34 puts God’s love, Christ’s death and resurrection, and his intercession together. God gives his Son for us; Christ intercedes for us. They belong to the same saving work.
Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
That helps me more than imagining a heavenly argument where Jesus keeps talking an unwilling God out of giving up on me.
He hasn’t finished caring
Hebrews takes the thought further. Jesus’ work for us continues. Hebrews 7:25 describes him living to intercede for those who come to God through him.
Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
I get caught in my failings quite easily. I know God loves me, then start acting as though my latest mistake has somehow escaped the scope of that love. I can explain grace far more confidently than I can accept it.
So this gives me somewhere to return when I do that. The person who knows what I’ve done is also the person who gave himself for me and continues to intercede for me.
There is still repentance. There is still growing up, dealing with what I’ve done and letting God change things I would prefer to leave alone. Being loved doesn’t make those things disappear. It gives me a reason to approach God with them.
I don’t need to wait until I can explain the Trinity, sort out my entire life, or produce a particularly impressive prayer. I can tell God where I’m struggling and ask for help. Jesus already knows, and he is already praying for people like me.