The Lord’s Prayer – John 17:1-5

Did you know there is a Christian Yoga Association?  Their mission is to “provide safe, authentic and biblically sound Christian yoga events while upholding excellent academic standards for students, trainers, schools, and continued education providers.”  They have an article about the postures of prayer, emphasizing that there are no rules, but suggesting that the postures we take in prayer can give our prayer life a whole new level of intimacy with Christ.  I don’t know about that, but I am intrigued that Jesus, on occasion, at least, prayed by lifting his open eyes up to the Father.  His prayer, here, is in one sense the true ‘Lord’s Prayer.’

Jesus said these things and lifted his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come.  Glorify your Son, that the Son might glorify you, even as You gave him authority over all humanity, that to all whom You have given him he might give eternal life.  And this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Messiah whom You have sent.  I have glorified you on the earth by completing the works You gave me to do.  And now, glorify me, Father, from Yourself, with the glory I had with you before the world existed.”  (John 17:1-5)

Jesus has finished addressing his disciples in what we have come to call the Upper Room Discourse (chapters 13-16).  His arrest is near.   His ability to address his disciples is at an end.  So he prays.  We get to see Jesus pray and the nature of his relationship to the Father.  It is a mutual admiration society, the Son asking for glory so he can glorify the Father.  He is asking the Father to make his name worthy of honor even so that he might give honor to the Father.  The glory that Jesus seeks is the glory he had with the Father before the world existed.

Jesus has been granted authority over all humans and authority to give eternal life to the ones the Father has given to Jesus.  Eternal life is knowing the Father and knowing Jesus whom He sent.  It isn’t just knowing who He is or what Jesus has done.  It is knowing them both in the same way they know each other. 

All of this points to the deity of Jesus, who is not ashamed to put himself on a par with the Father.  He knows that he has taken on human nature but that he has always been God, a member of the triune God before his human nature even existed.  Yet even within the trinity there is this line of authority, the Father having supreme authority that He can give or invest in the Son (and presumably, as we have seen in earlier chapters, the Spirit derives His authority from the Father and the Son).  The reason for this arrangement must be that in some sense the Son is really generated by the Father, and the Spirit by the Father and the Son together.  This is not created, but generated, a divine self-cloning if you will, from all eternity.  There never was a time when the Son or Spirit were not, because they have existed in this relationship for all eternity.  The Son is truly a son, the Spirit truly a reflection of their spirit, yet each is equally God.  They are absolutely one.

This is what gives us, their creation, the yearning for community with one another and yet the yearning for individuality.  We are a reflection of the Triune God.  And this is what gives us a yearning to know this One who made us.  We are made for relationship with God and with others.  Knowing you makes for intimacy and love.  Knowing the Father and the Son makes for eternal life.

Discussion Questions

1. What is your typical posture in prayer?
2. Why is it right for Jesus to ask God to glorify him?
3. What do you think Jesus means when he says the Father has given him certain human beings?
4. How do you think knowing the Father and knowing Jesus means eternal life?
5. How did Jesus say he had brought glory to the Father?
6. What has God given you to do to bring glory to Him?