John 17:4,6: I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.…I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world.
In John 17, we find Jesus’ final prayer before his crucifixion, offered up as the last supper ends (John includes no prayer in Gethsemane). It is sometimes called his “high priestly prayer” because commentators see parallels between it and the prayers of the high priests who offered animal sacrifices to Yahweh. But that’s not what I see. I see a prayer from the heart rather than a ritualistic act.
First, Jesus acknowledges who he is – the Son of the Father – and calls himself “Jesus Christ,” recognizing his earthly (incarnated) and divine (transformed) Self. He does not focus on himself as a sacrifice, however, but prays for his disciples and for the world. His is a beautiful intercessory prayer in which he summarizes his earthly role and its import. Verses 4 and 6 are instructive: “I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. . . . I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world.”
These verses and Jesus’ opening words suggest what it means to live in the dynamic of the “Christlife.”
First, I must recognize and acknowledge that I am God’s child; He has given me the gift of life in Him through His Son and the Holy Spirit; my gift to Him is to become the person He created me to be and to glorify Him through my presence in this world. Then, I must answer two questions:
What is the work I’ve been given to do?
Whom have I been given from the world to love and to serve?
Living out the answers to these questions (my incarnation) is my fulfillment in God (my transformation). It’s the message for each of us.
As Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, writes:
Whatever happens to Jesus is what must and will happen to the soul: incarnation, an embodied life of ordinariness and hiddenness, initiation, trial, faith, death, surrender, resurrection and return to God. Such is the Christ pattern that we all share in, either joyfully and trustfully (heaven), or unwillingly and resentfully (hell). (Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, [St. Anthony Messenger Press: Cincinnati, OH], 2008, p. 198).
— Shirley E. Deffenbaugh
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