Mother’s Day
May 8, 2016
John 17:20-26
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.” (NIV84)
Dear fellow worshipers of our Living Lord and Savior,
He is risen! He is risen indeed!
Ah, Mother’s Day. If you were asked to pick one word— just one! — that summarized the “essence” of Mother’s Day, what word would you pick? Would it be “flowers”? Flowers always go over well on Mother’s Day. How about the word “chocolates”? Chocolates go well on any day— especially Mother’s Day! Maybe it would be “dinner reservations”? (I know, that’s two words, but give me a break!) While each of those words do indeed tie in with Mother’s Day very well, none of them capture the “essence” of this day, do they. The one word that does capture the “essence” of Mother’s Day extremely well is the word— love. No matter whether we are still able to hug our Mom with our arms or whether we can only hug her in our hearts because she is now at Home with the Lord, the word “love” and the word “Mom” are all but synonymous.
Today, my friends, as we gather together here in the house of our God we have two goals in front of us. Not only are we here today to celebrate the last Sunday in the season of Easter (next week we celebrate the Festival of Pentecost), but we are also here in God’s house today to celebrate Mother’s Day. While at first glance those two goals might seem to be separate and distinct, they are actually very closely tied together. To help us see how the last Sunday of the Easter season dovetails very nicely with Mother’s Day we are going to study our sermon text for today under the theme: Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer— A Model for Christian Mothers. As we look at Jesus’ prayer for His children here on this earth we see that includes three emphases— emphases which Christian Moms understand very well! As Jesus approached His heavenly Father in prayer He prayed that His children be: united in faith, perfected in glory and surrounded in love. Moms, does that sound familiar?
Our text for today once again finds Jesus is in the Upper Room with His disciples. It is the evening of Maundy Thursday. Jesus knew that very soon He would be betrayed by His friend, handed over to His enemies and sentenced to die by crucifixion. Therefore, in a very heart-felt way Jesus uses this time to discuss with His disciples some extremely deep important truths: Jesus is “the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6); Jesus promised to send His disciples a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit (John 14:15ff); Jesus tells His disciples that it is absolutely vital for them to “remain” in Jesus like a branch “remains” in the vine (John 15:1ff); and Jesus warns His disciples that while “remaining” in Jesus would bring “trouble” and “grief” into the hearts and into the lives of Jesus’ disciples at the hands of the unbelieving world, Jesus’ victory over the world would bring “joy” and “peace” into their hearts and lives (John 16). Now, after talking directly to His disciples about these deep important truths, Jesus allows His disciples to listen, to listen as He prays to His heavenly Father on their behalf. Our text for today is a portion of that prayer, a prayer which is often referred to as Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer.
After praying to the heavenly Father on behalf of the disciples who were with Him there in the Upper Room, Jesus then looks into the future and He prays for you and for me and for all of His children down to the very end of time! And when Jesus prays for His children, all of His children, when Jesus prays for us, what does He ask of His heavenly Father? First, He prays that we be untied in the one true faith. This emphasis on unity is brought out very well clearly here in our text. Look at verse 20, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.” Look at verses 22 and 23, “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
The unity that Jesus asks His heavenly Father to give to us, His children here on this earth, is not a shallow shifting unity based on the sand-like premise that God’s children can “agree to disagree” on certain aspects of the Christian faith. No, my friends, the unity that Jesus wants for us, His children, is “complete unity.” It is a unity that is to be modeled after the “complete unity” that exists between Jesus and His heavenly Father.
But how do we know, my friends? How do we know if we are “united” as brothers and sisters in the faith? There is only one litmus test for the “complete unity” that Jesus describes here in our text. It is— faithfulness to God’s holy, inspired, inerrant Word! When we are able to raise our voices in unison and say that the Bible is God’s Word— from Genesis to Revelation, even those parts we may not be able to understand with our limited logical minds, even those parts we personally may not like, even those parts that people today reject outright— then we have the unity of faith that Jesus wants us to have! Then we have the unity of faith that not only unites us with the one true God, but it unites us together as the children of God!
Moms, doesn’t that sound familiar? I learned from my Mom that one of the goals of a Christian Mom is that her children be united in the one true faith. First and foremost, this means that she wants her children to be united with their dear Savior Jesus Christ. How can you as a Christian Mom and/or a Christian Grandma strive to achieve this goal? Like Jesus, you pray. You pray each and every day to your heavenly Father that He keeps your children— children whom He adopted to be His very own through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism— you pray to your heavenly Father that He use His power and His wisdom and His might to keep your children united with Him. In between all of those prayers you do your very best to help your children grow in their understanding of God’s holy Word by bringing them to church and to Sunday school and by reading Bible stories to them at home. The more firmly your children are founded on the rock-solid foundation of God’s Word the less likely they will be led astray by those who claim that certain parts of the Bible are not actually God’s Word, or that certain parts of the Bible no longer apply today, or as someone once told me, “We know more now than when the Bible was first written.”
Jesus’ prayer for “complete unity” among His children— unity that is based on the rock-solid foundation of Scripture— dovetails perfectly with His second emphasis as He prays to His heavenly Father, namely, that we, God’s children, will be perfected in glory. Look once again at verse 22, “I have given them the glory that you gave me,” and now add verse 24, “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory that you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”
Through the gift of saving faith which God the Holy Spirit has created in our hearts Christ has given us His “glory” as He now lives in us. Through this same gift of saving faith we are not only able to see Jesus, whom John describes as “…the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14), but as our faith grows stronger and stronger we grow in our ability to reflect His (Pointing to the cross) “glory” more and more in the way that we live our life! As Paul told the Corinthians, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). And now, here in His High Priestly Prayer Jesus asks His heavenly Father to keep us united in the one true faith with the goal that we will be perfected in glory! When will this happen? When we are with Jesus! When we see His “glory” face-to-face! When we get Home to heaven!
Moms, doesn’t that sound familiar? While every Mom wants only the very best for her children, as Christian Moms and as Christian Grandmas your ultimate goal for your children is that they will spend eternity with you in the glory and perfection of heaven! Not only will that goal be a part of your daily prayers to your heavenly Father, not only will you ask your heavenly Father to guide them and protect them as they journey this spiritually dark and dangerous world, but by word and by example you show them how— you show them how a child of God grows in their faith through regular use of God’s holy Word and God’s holy Sacrament. You show them how a child of God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is “being transformed into his likeness with every-increasing glory.”
That brings us to the final point of emphasis found here in our text. Jesus prayed to His heavenly Father that we, God’s children, will be surrounded, enveloped, by love. This is brought out in verse 23, “May they be brought to complete unity to let this world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” and again in verse 26 where Jesus says, “I have made you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
Love. Agape love. Unselfish love. Love that loves even the unlovable. That’s what led the Father to send His only begotten Son into this world so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. That’s what led Jesus to lay down His life for us. (Pointing to the cross) And that’s what Jesus prays will surround and envelope us, the children of God.
Love. Agape love. Unselfish love. Love that loves even the unlovable. Moms, doesn’t that sound familiar? Of course it does! The love that a Christian mother has for her children is modeled after the love her Savior-God has for her. Think back to all the times when you went without this so that your children could have that. Can you think of anything you wouldn’t do for your children— even though there are times when they drive you nuts, even though there are times that they break your heart? Follow the example that Jesus sets for you here in His high priestly prayer. In your daily prayers to your heavenly Father not only thank Him for the agape love that He showers upon you each and every day, but ask Him. Ask Him to shower your children with that same agape love. Ask Him to help you model that agape love to the children He has given to you.
Ah, Mother’s Day. As we gather together here in God’s house today to not only celebrate Mother’s Day, but to also celebrate the final Sunday in the glorious season of Easter, I pray that we have all been able to see how this portion of Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer serves as a model for Christian mothers— and for all of us! Let’s all thank our Mom and thank our Lord for mothers who pray that their children will be united in faith, who pray that their children will be perfected in glory and who pray that their children will be surrounded and enveloped in agape love. May you all have a very blessed and happy Mother’s Day!
To God be the glory!
Amen