The Prayer Before the Cross

Jesus lifted his eyes to heaven and spoke. The hour had come. He did not ask for escape. He asked that the Father glorify the Son so that the Son might glorify the Father. The authority given him over all flesh was not for dominion but for giving eternal life to everyone the Father had given him. And this eternal life, he said plainly, is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he sent.

He had glorified the Father on earth. He had finished the work given him to do. Now he asked for the glory he had with the Father before the world existed. Not a new glory. A return to the one he had laid aside.

He had made the Father’s name known to the men the Father gave him out of the world. They were the Father’s, and the Father gave them to Jesus. They kept his word. They knew that everything Jesus had came from the Father. They received the words Jesus gave them, knew he came from the Father, and believed the Father sent him.

Jesus prayed for them. Not for the world. For those the Father gave him, because they belonged to the Father. All that belonged to Jesus belonged to the Father, and all that belonged to the Father belonged to Jesus. And Jesus was glorified in them.

He was no longer in the world, but they were in the world. He was coming to the Father. He asked the Holy Father to keep them in his name, the name given to Jesus, so that they might be one as the Father and the Son are one. While he was with them, he kept them in that name. He guarded them. Not one perished except the son of perdition, so that Scripture might be fulfilled.

Now he was coming to the Father. He spoke these things while still in the world so that they might have his joy made full in themselves. He gave them the Father’s word. The world hated them because they were not of the world, just as Jesus was not of the world.

He did not ask the Father to take them out of the world. He asked that the Father keep them from the evil one. They were not of the world, just as he was not of the world. He asked the Father to sanctify them in the truth. The Father’s word is truth.

As the Father sent Jesus into the world, so Jesus sent them into the world. For their sake he sanctified himself so that they might also be sanctified in truth.

He did not pray only for them. He prayed for everyone who would believe in him through their word. He prayed that all of them might be one, as the Father is in him and he is in the Father, so that they might also be in them, and the world might believe that the Father sent him.

The glory the Father gave him, he gave to them, so that they might be one as the Father and the Son are one. He in them and the Father in him, so that they might be perfected into one, and the world might know that the Father sent him and loved them as the Father loved him.

He desired that those the Father gave him be with him where he is, to see his glory, the glory the Father gave him because the Father loved him before the foundation of the world. The world did not know the righteous Father. But Jesus knew him, and these knew that the Father sent him. He made the Father’s name known to them and would continue to make it known, so that the love with which the Father loved him might be in them, and he himself might be in them.