Harry Foster
Reading: John 17
THE Lord Jesus taught His disciples to pray, but we are not told that He ever prayed with them. He prayed for them, of course, and on this special occasion He allowed them to overhear His prayer and to record it. And what a prayer! Whenever we are reminded that now He lives to intercede for us in heaven we ought, perhaps, to re-read this chapter and allow the Holy Spirit to remind us of how He prays for His Church.
For it was the Church that He was praying for. It is only reasonable to conclude that His last supreme prayer would concern that which mattered to Him most, and both the spirit and the words of this prayer reveal to us how very much we do matter. For it was for us -- His Church -- that He prayed so earnestly. He might have prayed for the nation Israel. No doubt He often did. God knows, it needed prayer then and has done ever since, even till today. He might have prayed for all the nations of the earth, for they were in misery and confusion then as they certainly are now. But no, in this connection He specifically stated that He was not praying for the world -- not in that prayer. He was concentrating all His affections and His earnest pleadings on behalf of His redeemed people.
He hardly prayed for Himself at all. We are not surprised, for that is just like Him. He did announce several times that He was about to return home once again: "I come to thee" (v.11). In that connection He felt it right to ask that as Man, and as our Representative, He might be received into the same glory which He had always had before ever there was a world (v.5). We take it that His first request that the Father would glorify His Son was really a confession of need to be supported right through to the end of [99/100] what He Himself calls His finished work (v.4). The real burden of His intercession, however, was for that group of people whom He seven times describes as "those whom thou hast given me" (vv.2, 6, 6, 9, 11, 12 and 24). In that last verse He does ask something for Himself, as well as for us, for He gives voice to His longing desire, praying concerning this God-given people: "I will that, where I am, they also may be with me" (v.24). We are His precious treasure and He wants us always near to Him throughout all eternity.
