103 posts 6/11/2007 6:00 pm
Last Read:
6/11/2007 6:07 pm
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John 17:1-11a... The Prayer of Jesus... reflect
John 17:1-11a
The Prayer of Jesus... reflect
The gospel reading presents the first third of a sublime prayer of Jesus on behalf of all his present and future followers. Since the 16th century, it has been called the High-Priestly Prayer, because in it Jesus speaks to himself as a priest about to offer a sacrifice. In his case, of course, the sacrifice he offers is his own life. In this prayer, Jesus speaks directly to his Father in the presence of the apostles, thus intentionally giving them a glimpse into his relationship with his Father. The occasion is solemn and strangely moving.
One of the things Jesus says in this prayer–and he says it twice, once at the beginning and once at the end–is this formula: “I revealed your name.” Here, of course, the name stands for the person, as is often the case in Semitic thought. Jesus is therefore saying that essentially his mission consists in making perceptible, understandable, manifest the reality of the Father through what he says, does, and is. Jesus task is to make the Father transparent, as it were.. John has a marvelous verb he uses in the Prologue of his gospel in this connection. He writes: “The only …has revealed him”–exegesato, the verb from which are derived the English terms exegete and exegesis. In other words, Jesus is the “exegete” of the Father, the one who explains the Father as a teacher explains a difficult text.
An example of this work of Jesus is very simple. Think of the Parable of the Prodigal . In itself alone, that story tells in a nutshell what kind of God is our God. He is a loving Father. Nothing else. He is our Father.
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365 Days with the Lord
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