Called to Surrender

John 17:1-11

Jesus looked up to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you…

When we think of Jesus, we think of Him as man and God – human and divine, fully man and fully God, but as we proclaim Him King if King and Lord of Lords, His humanity tends to – well – get lost in more sacred images. So, without stumbling into early popular heresies, what do we mean by fully man?

Up until recently, if you checked online, you might have found that the average lifespan in Jesus’ day was late forties to early fifties, but that figure has been revised. What we are told today is that if a person made it through childhood, their life expectancy was pretty much the same as ours, so it makes sense that in Jewish culture, thirty years, when we believe Jesus’ ministry began, was considered the age of full mental and physical maturity.

Today’s Gospel reading comes toward the very end of Jesus’ ministry, so what we are listening to is the prayer of a strong, healthy, young man, who knows He is facing almost unimaginable horror and death. It is almost too grim to imagine, but to Jesus it comes as no surprise.

Father, the hour has come …  In John’s Gospel, ‘the hour” has been known to Jesus since the beginning of His ministry. You may remember at the wedding feast in Canan when Jesus’ mother tells Him, “They have no wine”, His response is, “Woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come.”  In fact, Jesus’ “hour” is mentioned approximately seventeen times in John’s Gospel. What must have it been like for Him to know what lay ahead?

To put it in a very human and more familiar context, think of a young man or woman gong to battle, knowing in advance that he or she will win, but this can only be accomplished through being captured, horribly tortured, and killed. Jesus knew, and He went ahead anyway – for us.

In today’s Gospel, as Jesus’ end draws near, we hear approximately the first third of what is known as the High Priestly Prayer, a title that can also tend to make us forget it is the prayer of a young man facing death. It is a prayer said out loud at the Last Supper, so that what He says is for both God and the disciples to hear, and in it, Jesus pours out His heart to God the Father. His disciples are still wondering when He will restore the kingdom to Israel, so what He has to say may have surprised them.

He prays first for Himself. He needs strength now to face what lies ahead, so that what He must endure will glorify God the Father, and will also glorify Him, so that for their sake His followers will know and believe that He is God. He then prays for the disciples, asking that they be kept in God’s name and sanctified in truth, despite living in a hostile world. For the disciples, there is a lot yet to come, about which they still know nothing.

Jesus knows, and so we have here a strong young man, facing with calm conviction all that lies ahead for Him, and with deep love, praying for His friends, that they will also be able to endure. This is a moving and amazing prayer. But then we say, OK, but Jesus is fully God, so of course He has a deep trust in God the Father, because He and the father are One. We gloss over the fact that for Him this is also a horrifying time. Still, despite everything, His trust in the Father is unwavering.

We, of course, are fully human, so it may come as a surprise to us to realize that we too are called to this deep, unwavering trust in God. In fact, it is with the deep trust in God that we are called to live our lives. This isn’t just something that is expected of us, it is what we promised at our baptism. Whether or not you remember your baptism, you have a general idea that when you were baptized you rejected Satan and all forms of evil. But there is also that specific commitment to Jesus, that we will put our whole trust in His grace and love. In the Pilgrim Hymnal it says that God has “led us into a sure and certain faith that we are His and He is ours, forever and forever.”

We or our sponsors affirmed this, and our lives were and are changed forever, because to live up to the promise of unity we have made to God, we have to do a lot of shifting of our basic human nature and priorities. We fear pain, suffering, sickness, hunger, loneliness, rejection – and more. On a more spiritual level we fear anger, cruelty, gossip, greed, all forms of evil. How are we supposed to deal with these fears, and sometime realities in our lives, and put our whole trust in Jesus.

The answer is – yes really - with prayer and trust in God. And of course, the worldly response to this information is, “You must be kidding”. But, no, we are really meant to totally surrender to our loving God, that is our calling as Jesus’ followers. While money or possessions may put a Band-Aid on our health or material problems, eventually we come to realize that what we want most is someone who cares and can comfort us, someone who understands and can really see us through, who can solve our situation.

To do what at our Baptism we promised we would do, to put our whole trust in His grace, we are called to surrender to our God of compassion, mercy, and love. But we object.  Doesn’t “surrender” mean losing? Why would we want to do that? We errant children always seem to get back to, what’s in this for me?

First, we need to understand what the Church means by “surrender”.  Surrender means to totally love and trust Jesus. The reason God came down, the reason God became incarnate, the reason for Jesus, is to show us how to live, and that in the face of the most horrific situations we can and need to put all our faith and trust in Him. God gave Himself fully to us, and He expects us to do as we promised and give ourselves fully to Him. God will never let us down if we put our faith and trust totally in Him.

People have complained to me that they asked God for something and, as they put it, “He didn’t answer”. First and foremost, God always answers in the way that is best for us, which may or may not be the way we wanted or expected. Second, asking for this and that does not mean that we are leaning on Jesus. I want this or that is not the same as “Jesus – help me!” We must not attempt to control God’s actions, even if and when everything seems to be going wrong. Jesus is God. He loves each of us, and He will take care of things.

Surely some if not all of you, at a moment when you least expected it, have experienced the amazing action of the love of Jesus in your life.  A friend who stepped in with help, when you thought you were going under. A new medication that did what was needed, when a loved one’s health was teetering on the brink. A subtle, but strong awareness of the Presence of love, near yet unexplained, when sorrow or despair seemed overwhelming. This is Jesus – this is God’s love at work in our lives.

Now, to be totally honest, surrender does mean losing, at least some things. We are very fond of our stuff, our personal lives, so divesting ourselves of any of it, can be painful. Yet, we realize later that, no matter what we had to surrender, it was exactly the right thing to do. The chief thing we must give up, in order to surrender, is control. This, for us, is very difficult. Yet, it is when we completely let go of, or totally lose control – that we are most likely to discover Jesus at work in our lives.

In my own life, back during the recession of 2008, when my husband and I had been notified by the bank that they were going to begin foreclosure on our home, a friend directed us to a credit counselling service, and someone we didn’t know, worked with us to get us a modified mortgage.

These things are not good luck, or coincidence – this is the action of our loving God, who walked the earth as a man, and knows not just our spiritual needs, but our daily ones, and He will take care of everything. Sometimes, it hurts to be human, and what we could “really use” is love – and it is there for us where it has always been, in the Love and compassion of our Lord.

Jesus’ hour has come. This is the pivotal point in human history, a fixed point in eternity on which our human destiny hangs. Jesus is in union with the God Father, and Jesus is God. But Jesus is still fully human, and in today’s prayer He shows us what true faith looks like. God has given Himself fully to us – and so to live our baptismal vows, to live in the joy that is ours, we give ourselves fully to Him.

Let us pray – in the words of the hymn:

Lord Jesus, gladly we surrender earth’s deceitful treasures, pride of life and sinful pleasures. Gladly Lord we offer, Thine to be forever, soul and life and each endeavor. Thou alone shall be known, Lord of all our being, life’s true way decreeing. Amen1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11  John 17:1-11

Jesus looked up to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you…

When we think of Jesus, we think of Him as man and God – human and divine, fully man and fully God, but as we proclaim Him King if King and Lord of Lords, His humanity tends to – well – get lost in more sacred images. So, without stumbling into early popular heresies, what do we mean by fully man?

Up until recently, if you checked online, you might have found that the average lifespan in Jesus’ day was late forties to early fifties, but that figure has been revised. What we are told today is that if a person made it through childhood, their life expectancy was pretty much the same as ours, so it makes sense that in Jewish culture, thirty years, when we believe Jesus’ ministry began, was considered the age of full mental and physical maturity.

Today’s Gospel reading comes toward the very end of Jesus’ ministry, so what we are listening to is the prayer of a strong, healthy, young man, who knows He is facing almost unimaginable horror and death. It is almost too grim to imagine, but to Jesus it comes as no surprise.

Father, the hour has come …  In John’s Gospel, ‘the hour” has been known to Jesus since the beginning of His ministry. You may remember at the wedding feast in Canan when Jesus’ mother tells Him, “They have no wine”, His response is, “Woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come.”  In fact, Jesus’ “hour” is mentioned approximately seventeen times in John’s Gospel. What must have it been like for Him to know what lay ahead?

To put it in a very human and more familiar context, think of a young man or woman gong to battle, knowing in advance that he or she will win, but this can only be accomplished through being captured, horribly tortured, and killed. Jesus knew, and He went ahead anyway – for us.

In today’s Gospel, as Jesus’ end draws near, we hear approximately the first third of what is known as the High Priestly Prayer, a title that can also tend to make us forget it is the prayer of a young man facing death. It is a prayer said out loud at the Last Supper, so that what He says is for both God and the disciples to hear, and in it, Jesus pours out His heart to God the Father. His disciples are still wondering when He will restore the kingdom to Israel, so what He has to say may have surprised them.

He prays first for Himself. He needs strength now to face what lies ahead, so that what He must endure will glorify God the Father, and will also glorify Him, so that for their sake His followers will know and believe that He is God. He then prays for the disciples, asking that they be kept in God’s name and sanctified in truth, despite living in a hostile world. For the disciples, there is a lot yet to come, about which they still know nothing.

Jesus knows, and so we have here a strong young man, facing with calm conviction all that lies ahead for Him, and with deep love, praying for His friends, that they will also be able to endure. This is a moving and amazing prayer. But then we say, OK, but Jesus is fully God, so of course He has a deep trust in God the Father, because He and the father are One. We gloss over the fact that for Him this is also a horrifying time. Still, despite everything, His trust in the Father is unwavering.

We, of course, are fully human, so it may come as a surprise to us to realize that we too are called to this deep, unwavering trust in God. In fact, it is with the deep trust in God that we are called to live our lives. This isn’t just something that is expected of us, it is what we promised at our baptism. Whether or not you remember your baptism, you have a general idea that when you were baptized you rejected Satan and all forms of evil. But there is also that specific commitment to Jesus, that we will put our whole trust in His grace and love. In the Pilgrim Hymnal it says that God has “led us into a sure and certain faith that we are His and He is ours, forever and forever.”

We or our sponsors affirmed this, and our lives were and are changed forever, because to live up to the promise of unity we have made to God, we have to do a lot of shifting of our basic human nature and priorities. We fear pain, suffering, sickness, hunger, loneliness, rejection – and more. On a more spiritual level we fear anger, cruelty, gossip, greed, all forms of evil. How are we supposed to deal with these fears, and sometime realities in our lives, and put our whole trust in Jesus.

The answer is – yes really - with prayer and trust in God. And of course, the worldly response to this information is, “You must be kidding”. But, no, we are really meant to totally surrender to our loving God, that is our calling as Jesus’ followers. While money or possessions may put a Band-Aid on our health or material problems, eventually we come to realize that what we want most is someone who cares and can comfort us, someone who understands and can really see us through, who can solve our situation.

To do what at our Baptism we promised we would do, to put our whole trust in His grace, we are called to surrender to our God of compassion, mercy, and love. But we object.  Doesn’t “surrender” mean losing? Why would we want to do that? We errant children always seem to get back to, what’s in this for me?

First, we need to understand what the Church means by “surrender”.  Surrender means to totally love and trust Jesus. The reason God came down, the reason God became incarnate, the reason for Jesus, is to show us how to live, and that in the face of the most horrific situations we can and need to put all our faith and trust in Him. God gave Himself fully to us, and He expects us to do as we promised and give ourselves fully to Him. God will never let us down if we put our faith and trust totally in Him.

People have complained to me that they asked God for something and, as they put it, “He didn’t answer”. First and foremost, God always answers in the way that is best for us, which may or may not be the way we wanted or expected. Second, asking for this and that does not mean that we are leaning on Jesus. I want this or that is not the same as “Jesus – help me!” We must not attempt to control God’s actions, even if and when everything seems to be going wrong. Jesus is God. He loves each of us, and He will take care of things.

Surely some if not all of you, at a moment when you least expected it, have experienced the amazing action of the love of Jesus in your life.  A friend who stepped in with help, when you thought you were going under. A new medication that did what was needed, when a loved one’s health was teetering on the brink. A subtle, but strong awareness of the Presence of love, near yet unexplained, when sorrow or despair seemed overwhelming. This is Jesus – this is God’s love at work in our lives.

Now, to be totally honest, surrender does mean losing, at least some things. We are very fond of our stuff, our personal lives, so divesting ourselves of any of it, can be painful. Yet, we realize later that, no matter what we had to surrender, it was exactly the right thing to do. The chief thing we must give up, in order to surrender, is control. This, for us, is very difficult. Yet, it is when we completely let go of, or totally lose control – that we are most likely to discover Jesus at work in our lives.

In my own life, back during the recession of 2008, when my husband and I had been notified by the bank that they were going to begin foreclosure on our home, a friend directed us to a credit counselling service, and someone we didn’t know, worked with us to get us a modified mortgage.

These things are not good luck, or coincidence – this is the action of our loving God, who walked the earth as a man, and knows not just our spiritual needs, but our daily ones, and He will take care of everything. Sometimes, it hurts to be human, and what we could “really use” is love – and it is there for us where it has always been, in the Love and compassion of our Lord.

Jesus’ hour has come. This is the pivotal point in human history, a fixed point in eternity on which our human destiny hangs. Jesus is in union with the God Father, and Jesus is God. But Jesus is still fully human, and in today’s prayer He shows us what true faith looks like. God has given Himself fully to us – and so to live our baptismal vows, to live in the joy that is ours, we give ourselves fully to Him.

Let us pray – in the words of the hymn:

Lord Jesus, gladly we surrender earth’s deceitful treasures, pride of life and sinful pleasures. Gladly Lord we offer, Thine to be forever, soul and life and each endeavor. Thou alone shall be known, Lord of all our being, life’s true way decreeing. Amen