The Shepherd’s Voice

Readings for Sunday, May 24^th
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
Ps 1
1Jn 5:9-13
Jn 17:6-19

The Shepherd’s Voice – Sermon Audio

Are you comfortable praying in public? Not everyone is because prayers are intimate. Prayers open a window to our heart. Our prayers often unveil what we are really thinking.

Ole and Lena just got married so as they were driving north to Minneapolis he’s praying to himself that everything goes well. This is their honeymoon trip and Ole doesn’t know how his prayer is going to be answered. As he’s driving along they’re nearing Minneapolis as Ole put his hand on Lena’s knee.
Giggling, Lena said, “Ole, you can go a little farder now if ya vant to”.Ole says that’s an answer to my prayers.. now we can go all the way to Duluth. For some prayer can be confusing, but not for Jesus.

We have an opportunity to hear some of Jesus’ prayer language. Jesus is talking with the Father, the Creator, the God of all things visible and invisible. So what can we learn as we listen to Jesus’ prayer? We see that Jesus lived a life of 1) Advocacy, 2) Intimacy, and 3) Unity.

1) First – Jesus life is one of advocacy on behalf of others, Jesus was a truth teller who cared.
Jesus was given insight, truth, and God’s Word which he shared with the disciples. Jesus came on the scene knowing that he had been given a responsibility to open the minds of the disciples in regards to all truth.

The trouble with an open mind is, of course, is that someone is always coming along and trying to fill it with garbage. In our case that didn’t happen because Jesus said “the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.”

Jesus was a teacher of truth advocating on the disciples behalf. John in our second reading from (I John 5:9-11) said it this way: “If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son. Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

Jesus entire life was one of truth telling. God offers each of us new life, if we believe it. Those of us that believe have this testimony written in our hearts, like we heard it in Jesus’ very intimate prayer to the Father.

This past week we celebrated Christ’s ascension at Synod assembly. Before ascending Jesus knew that he would no longer be physically present with the disciples so he pleaded with the Father for ongoing protection of the disciples being left on earth.

Also, Jesus had earlier told the disciples (John 14:15-17) that he had to leave because God was going to send an advocate to be with them forever. This advocate, the Spirit of Christ would be able to spread God’s truth to far greater numbers than Jesus the human, this God/man who was with them now. Even though our Easter season is coming to an end, next Sunday we will celebrate the coming of the Spirit and see what impact the Spirit has in our world, but for now we must focus on Jesus life and Jesus connection with the father.

2) Jesus connection to God was important, real, significant, and intimate.
During Jesus life, he was a teacher, an example, an advocate, a protector showing the disciples how they could experience true life as long as they were connected to the Father.

The disciples were witnesses to this intimate connection to the Father, which also comes through in Jesus prayer when he says, “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

Two weeks from this Sunday will be Holy Trinity Sunday and we will be talking more about Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit all being one. Here we just have Jesus intimately saying to the Father that we are one.

Again, John the witness (I John 5:10), the one who was there, tells us that, “Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar.”

Granted sometimes it’s hard to believe. Did Jesus really exist – historical evidence pretty much answers that question, but was he really the Son of God who was raised from the dead? Many people have struggled with this; in fact even some preachers are not fully convinced of the resurrection.

In the magazine “Christianity Today” at one time they had an anonymous advice columnist who went by the name Eutychus, A lay person wrote in rather distraught about their pastor’s Easter sermon:

Dear Eutychus: (the letter begins)
Our preacher said, On Easter, that Jesus just swooned on the cross and the disciples nursed Him back to health. What do you think?
Sincerely, Bewildered

Dear Bewildered:
Beat your preacher with a cat-of-nine-tails using 39 heavy strokes, nail him to a cross, hang him in the sun for 6 hours; run a spear through his side and heart; embalm him; put him in an airless tomb for 36 hours and see what happens.
Sincerely,
Eutychus

Jesus connection with the Father was real, it was personal, it was intimate. God wants a connection with us that is real, personal, and intimate. God, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ demonstrated His love for us, even while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:8) Can it get any more real, or personal or intimate than that?

3) Jesus disciples were an important group; we are an important group of followers as well in God’s eyes.
Jesus had given them God’s Word (see the text) and the world hated them, Jesus said. Jesus in his very intimate prayer was asking the Father for protection. He knew life would not be easy after he left this earth so they needed protection.

Jesus wanted his followers to hang together, to be one just as He and the Father were one. It’s important to be part of a community of believers. It’s important to believe and live as one body of believers sanctified in the truth. Falling away has consequences.

When Sir Edmund Hillary and his native guide, Tensing, made their historic climb up Mount Everest, Hillary slipped, lost his footing, and fell into a treacherous crevice. Fortunately, Sir Edmund and the guide were tied together by a strong rope. The Nepalese guide, Tensing, pulled his British friend, Hillary, inch by inch back to safety. Tensing was later asked about this event and said, “Mountain climbers always help each other.” There was a bond between them — figuratively and literally.

The same was true for the disciples after Jesus’ ascension and the same should be true in the Church today. There is a bond that ties us together — a bond that should lead us to support one another, to reach out to one other in love — a bond that seeks to pull each other up higher and higher into God’s presence.
What is type of bond is it that holds us together as a community of faith? Is it strong enough to pull each other up when we fall, and we all fall from time to time?

If our bond is about a building, a property, a sanctuary it is not a strong bond. It’s a bond based on material things, not eternal things. The bond that connected Jesus to the Father was a testimony to truth itself, a bond of love. This testimony of the Son was written on the hearts of the believers. Those who did not believe were liars, phony’s, ingrates, people who are unable to connect to the Father for eternal life.

Part of Jesus’ intimate prayer was, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”

Can we say as a body of believers we search God’s Word so we can be sanctified? I going to ask a question, it’s personal, it’s intimate, and it’s also telling. Please raise your hand if you have eaten any time this last year. Ok, good. Keep your hand up if you eaten anytime in the last month. Ok, good. Keep you hand up if you have eaten in the least once a week. Ok, good. Now keep you hand up if you eaten anything day. Now I want to substitute reading your Bible on your own for the word eaten. Who of us can say we eat from God’s Word on our own, every single day?

Jesus asked the Father to “Sanctify them in the truth; your (His) word is truth” knowing that being in God’s word was a way to bring people to God. It was a way to create this real, personal and intimate relationship with God, the Father, which was/is necessary for us to be One Body Sanctified in Truth.

Jesus intimate, personal, and transparent prayer for his followers was that they would have new life through him. That they would eat from the Word of truth, stay connected in a real, personal and intimate way with God. They were to be one body, connected together through the testimony of the Son, in their hearts. Jesus was an advocate to the father who desired unity.

Pull out your ELW hymnal, look at hymn #654. Let’s read verse one together. Jesus is bound to the church forever in an intimate, personal and fully transparent way.

Amen

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