"Yet,we seldom talk about Jesus praying."
JOE MILLER JR.
Food For Thought… Passing the word

Joe Miller, Jr.

Pastor of First United Methodist Church

www.NewtonMethodist.com

John 17:20-26

We Christians pray often. We pray in church every Sunday, before meals, at bedtime, when first getting up in the morning, and at miscellaneous times. We all have our favorite times for prayer.

Yet, we seldom talk about Jesus praying. We do repeat the Lord's Prayer that is recorded in Matthew 6:9-13, and we love the image of Jesus praying in Gethsemane just before being taken prisoner and crucified. This image from Gethsemane is recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The Gospel of Luke also mentions Jesus' praying many times, but the content of the prayers is never revealed to us.

However, there is a wonderful example of Jesus praying in the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John. This prayer was witnessed by Jesus' disciples and passed down to us. This prayer was uttered just before Jesus was taken prisoner, and contains the last words he would speak to the disciples before his crucifixion.

What would you expect someone to pray just before being beaten and killed? We might pray for revenge on the perpetrators, or at least for justice to be done. The Gethsemane prayers from the other gospels depict Jesus asking God if he really must go through with the plan leading to the cross. Luke tells us that great beads of sweat appeared on his forehead, and an angel came to strengthen him. All the while, the three disciples kept going to sleep.

But John tells us a different perception of Jesus' last prayer. He does not pray for himself at all. Jesus prays for his disciples, and in verse 20 he prays for us. That is correct; he prays for us: "…those who will believe…" The future tense in the Greek is very clear, and we are the future. Of course, so were 2000 years of saints before us and countless numbers after us.

Jesus was praying for the ongoingness of the church that would grow through the word that would be passed down from generation to generation. We tend to take this continuation or ongoingness of the church as a given, but that assurance is because of hindsight.

Right after Jesus was crucified, who would have believed that the "movement" he started would have continued for even a few years after his death? He ascended into heaven with only a few former fishermen and other blue collar people to carry on the mission of love and unity.

What made him think that the "word" would be carried forward for 2000 years and beyond? There are many answers to this question. I mention only three possible answers. First, the Holy Spirit would come and teach us everything that Jesus taught and remind us to whom we belong. Second, the word is more powerful than we can ever imagine. Third, being sanctified into the body of Christ and sharing in the life of God sustains the church through the bad times.

Unfortunately, the mainline churches in America are slowly slipping away because the post war generation has done a poor job of passing the word to our children. The church is graying rapidly. We can come up with all kinds of excuses about our culture (society) today, but our reluctance to bring up our children in the church is our own doing. We all need to be more active in passing the word to our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and so on, or the saints who follow us will be looking back on our failure.

Do you consider yourself a Christian? Do you pass the word of Christ on to others? The best place to receive the word and get empowered to carry out the mission of Christ is in church! If you have a church, worship passionately. If you do not have a church, find one. East Texas is full of good churches. Email me at newtonumc@ valornet.com with your thoughts.

Joe Miller Jr. is pastor of First United Methodist Church in Newton.