This chapter gives us the longest recorded prayer of Jesus. In it he prays for himself (and God’s glory),for his disciples and their security without him. He closes praying for the (then future) church and its ongoing unity.
Here is a link to the livestream video:
Heavenly Father,
We thank you that Jesus has come not only to save us but to overcome our enemy the devil. Thank you that we can have confidence that you are at work and have won the battle, even when we face various trials. Help us to remain strong in our faith and to never fall away as so many others have done.
We thank you for the work of the Holy Spirit within us and for the way he inspired the human authors of your word. We now ask you to help us fill our hearts and minds with the Bible and stay focused upon it, that we might continuously experience your peace.
And we pray this in Jesus’ name,
Amen
44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
A while back, GQ magazine got some attention by putting the Bible on a list of books not worth reading. I never actually read the list in GQ myself. I only learned about it from USA Today. Feel free to check out at least the headline there.
By writing such a thing, maybe the GQ columnist was hoping to increase GQ readership as compared with the Bible. If so, I don’t believe it worked.
There is something here that is understandable though, and that is that the Bible can be hard to understand. Christ’s own disciples were often stumped by it, just as they were often stumped by Christ. After the resurrection, however, much of that began to change. Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And that brings us to where we are today.
We are far removed from the people and events of the Bible, both by time and by geography. Sitting here in my office on the edge of downtown Indianapolis, the events of the Bible happened a long time ago on a continent far, far away. And that can be troubling.
We can feel much like those early disciples. Confused, bewildered, baffled. If we give up too soon, we can come to the premature conclusion of the GQ guy and think the Bible just isn’t worth reading. We need Jesus to explain things to us. Like the psalmist we may cry out,
Open my eyes, that I may behold
wondrous things out of your law. (Psalm 119:18)
Jesus even promised that the Holy Spirit would come to teach us. In John 14:26, he said,
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
Without God’s help we just might not get it. But with his help, we can find ourselves agreeing again with the psalmist,
92 If your law had not been my delight,
I would have perished in my affliction.
93 I will never forget your precepts,
for by them you have given me life. (Psalm 119:92-93)
When Jesus challenged his disciples, the Peter gave a response that all of us should be able to repeat after him. Here it is in John 6,
67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
Let’s make God’s word our delight and far from being critical of it, we will find that it will become for us a source of life.
Central Reflections 