5th Friday of Lent, March 26. “The hour has come”

Audio version at: ​https://youtu.be/BOuCfiZv_T4

Prepare to Listen.  In your silence, offer this prayer: You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
 
Prayerfully Read John 17:1-5
After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, 2since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.  3And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.  4I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.  5So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.
 
Prayerfully Wonder
Take off your shoes, please.  This is holy ground.  Jesus is praying.
 
He’s praying about something that has been on his mind since his public ministry began—his hour.  At first, at the wedding in Cana, he said, “My hour has not yet come.”  And now, as his crucifixion drew near, he knew, “the hour has come.”  His hour was his death, an excruciating death, yet his request looks beyond that, as he prayed, “glorify your Son” (v1), and repeating it, “glorify me in your presence” (v5).   This isn’t the self-centered request of a homesick Jesus looking forward to home.  It’s a willing acceptance of what lay ahead.  To be glorified meant first going through the agonies of the cross, his hour.  Only then could we receive eternal life, which, as O’Day and Hylen note, “is not a gift of immortality or a future life in heaven, but of a life shaped by the knowledge of God as revealed in Jesus” [1].  It’s knowing the Father and Son, Jesus explained (v3).  This is a knowing that involves us in an intimate, loving, real relationship to be experienced in this present time, one that shapes us to be like Jesus.  It’s the kind of relationship Jesus has with the Father and longed to return to.  He longs for us to experience it too.  His hour had come, and he accepted it.
 
Prayerfully Reflect
Jesus looked up to heaven and began his prayer.  Imagine the look on his face as if you were there watching.  What do you see?
 
Respond to Jesus
Lord, you looked up to the Father, and prayed that your life and what lay ahead (the cross) would be for the benefit of all those who believe in you.  Draw me ever deeper into my relationship with you.  Amen.
 
Go live obediently in the world, in gratitude for Jesus’ willing acceptance of his hour.
[1] Gail O’Day and Susan Hylen.  John, 2006, p. 163.