Sunday After Ascension

Light of Christ Anglican Church 

The Reverend Michael J. Moffitt

May 17 2026 

Sermon: John 17:1-11 “The High Priestly Prayer Of Jesus”

Today is the Sunday following the Feast of the Day of Ascension of Jesus

Christ back to the Father which was last Thursday. The Ascension is

celebrated on the fortieth day of Easter, or in some places on the

following Sunday. So the date changes, because the Christian calendar

follows the Resurrection.

That matters more than many people realize. The enemy would have us

forget that the work and ministry of Jesus Christ was victorious and

happened according to the sovereign work of the Father. The same

Jesus who was crucified and raised from the dead entered heavenly

glory as Lord and King. He ascended bodily, and reigns as High Priest,

interceding for His people, and will one day return in glory bringing with

Him the New Heavens and the New Earth. Glory to God!

The Ascension is the public vindication of the One many rejected. It tells

the world that the cross was not a failure and the Resurrection was not

a metaphor or an allegory pointing to something else. Christ is King,

and heaven received him because death could not hold him. We

celebrate that event because the Ascension completes the saving work

promised in the word of God and reminds every believer of the promise

and hope of our heavenly and earthly reign with our Savior. That

matters quite a bit doesn’t it?

From the very beginning of his Gospel, John points the reader to the

impressive amount of evidence of Jesus’ divinity. It’s helpful to

remember that John is writing this gospel around 20 to 30 years after

the Synoptic Gospel’s Matthew, Mark, and Luke. At the time of the

events in the upper room and the High Priestly Prayer, the disciples still

had little comprehension as to what was going to happen to Jesus and

therefore to them. At the time of the writing of his Gospel John was

responding to the heresies concerning Jesus that plagued the early

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church, and to leave no doubt as to the identity and purpose of the Son

of God.

A great deal had happened over the 55–60 years since Jesus’ ascension

back to the Father, and of course to John. He was a very different

person, and through the witness of the Holy Spirit, had a very different

understanding of Jesus’ role in the Father’s plan to redeem humanity.

John’s gospel has a richness and depth that was borne from many years

of living in the presence of God and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

However, it is crucial that we see his words in light of all that had

happened to him and the other disciples. James the brother of John

was the first disciple put to death by Herod and by the time that John

wrote his gospel the other disciples had been martyred as well.

Early on persecution came to the church and many of those who John

loved and ministered with were gone. When approaching John’s Gospel

we should anticipate a deeper appreciation of the majesty and glory of

the Son of God. The Apostle John, had actually benefitted from many

years of an ever-deepening relationship with Jesus even in times of

trouble or sorrow.

From the very first chapter of John we see that Jesus was eternally

present with the Father and through Jesus, the Son of God, all things

were created. The Father used the Son as the agent in creation teaching

that creation itself was a distinct activity of the Godhead.

Understanding this should cause us to marvel that the creator of all

things came to save us from our betrayal and indifference to his word

and love. Let’s look at John 17:1–2,

“When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven,

and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son

may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to

give eternal life to all whom you have given him.”

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Of course the first question is what were the words that Jesus had just

spoken. Actually, there was a whole section that Jesus had spoken but I

think that the preceding two verses will suffice. Listen to John 16:32-33,

“Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be

scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not

alone, for the Father is with me.   I have said these things to you,

that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation.

But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

So Jesus’ prayer begins with the acknowledgement that the time to

fulfill all that he and the Father had agreed upon was at hand. This act

of faithful obedience will end up bringing glory to the Father and the

Son. This passage focuses on the union between the Father, the Son,

and the glory they share. The Father is seen as the one who gives, (in

the ESV used 15 times in this chapter), calling attention to His grace and

his role as the source of all. Jesus focuses specifically on the Father’s

gift to the Son of the disciples.

Throughout his ministry on earth, Jesus referred to his hour coming. At

the wedding feast in Cana of John 2. Mary the mother of Jesus came to

him because the wine had run out at the wedding, which would have

been a great embarrassment to the host. Jesus looks at his mother and

says, “Woman, my hour has not yet come.” Of course, he turned water

into wine and a much better wine than before. The theme of Jesus’

“hour” was prominent for much of his ministry and the story from

John’s gospel. Time and again the authorities attempted to arrest Jesus,

but he slipped by them because, “His time had not yet come”.

Jesus knew that all things would work out according to the plan of the

Father. John records a prayer that Jesus spoke to the Father after he

had entered Jerusalem knowing that he wasn’t going to leave until his

ascension back to the Father. Jesus said in John 12:27:28,

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“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from

this hour’? But for this purpose, I have come to this hour. Father,

glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified

it, and I will glorify it again.”

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Jesus was fully God but also fully

man. When Jesus fell down he would bleed, if he were hungry he felt

the same hunger pangs as you and I. He knew fear and sorrow, but he

always took those things to his Father instead of giving the enemy a

chance to tempt him. With that idea in mind, we have to contemplate

what Jesus was going through as he prayed for his disciples in John 17.

He knew what was coming and yet his focus was on the disciples and

the glory of God.

I love the way 19th-century pastor and theologian Charles Spurgeon

saw this moment for Jesus.

“After the closing supper, his public preaching work being ended, and

nothing remaining to be done but to die, he gave himself wholly unto

prayer. He was not again to instruct the multitude, nor heal the sick,

and in the interval which remained, before he should lay down his life,

he girded himself for special intercession. He poured out his soul in life

before he poured it out unto death.” 1

This amazing prayer was made with heart and mind focused on the

Father in Heaven. He said nothing of the suffering he would go through

or the decision to take our sin upon himself, even though he knew it

would cause a break in the unity and fellowship that he had eternally

enjoyed with the Father. You and I can never fully understand what that

was like for the Father and the Son. Instead his focus was on the

absolute fulfillment of God the Father’s will, no matter the cost, and

simply because it was the only way that eternal life could come to

others.

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To put it simply, the Son will glorify the Father through giving eternal

life to those that the Father gives him. In turn the Father’s glorification

of the Son is in keeping with his giving the Son authority over all flesh.

What authority is he speaking of? Earlier in the Gospel Jesus spoke of

the authority given him by the Father to give life and to judge

(5:20–27). In this case Jesus is speaking of the role that the Father gave

the Son as the agent of creation. Dr. Rod Whitacre in his Commentary

on John explains,

“the flow is from creation to new creation. In both cases the Father is

the ultimate source, and the Son is God’s agent. The Son has given life

to all creation, and now it is time for him to give eternal life to those

within creation given him by God….both divine sovereignty and human

responsibility have been stressed throughout this Gospel, but there is

never any doubt that all depends on the Father’s grace.” 2

As believers we should understand and glory in the authority of Jesus,

especially considering the alternative. Every one of us operates under

authority whether we choose to believe it or not. If you do not choose

to live under the authority of Jesus, another authority will emerge.

Jesus willingly submitted to the authority of His Father in Heaven, and

this is important to understand. It would not bring any glory to the

Father if Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was not acceptable, or if the Son

were not restored to his rightful place in the presence of the Father’s

full glory. If this were not accomplished according to the will of the

Father then the divine mission would be a failure, and the purposes of

grace would be defeated. The disciples were in no position to fully

understand the implications of what Jesus was praying until much later.

In their mind and culture, the cross was a symbol of shame and

humiliation, but it was the symbol of glorification in the eyes of the

Father.

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There was so much at stake here. We should remember that Jesus had

the authority to give eternal life to all that the Father had given him.

The only way that we would receive it was if Jesus obeyed the will of

the Father. Christians often think of Jesus as God’s gift to us, but likely

never see ourselves as the Father's gift to Jesus.

Let’s read John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the

only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

Often, when we think of eternal life we think of the longevity of life, but

Jesus is speaking of a very different quality of life—life with the Father.

From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus taught about the kingdom of

God. The offer wasn’t just to live forever without sin, sickness, pain and

suffering and the other problems we encounter here in this life, but to

have a deep, wonderful and ever-increasing knowledge of the all-

powerful, all-knowing, loving, and merciful Creator God. We were

created for this, and Jesus came to restore the relationship. This is the

promise of the New Covenant. The truth is that even now we have no

concept or understanding of this gift. I suspect that as the Apostle John

wrote this gospel and this High Priestly prayer of Jesus to the Father he

could hardly contain the joy as he knew it wouldn’t be that long before

once again he beheld his Lord face to face.

This knowledge is of both the Father and the Son. Jesus is the conduit

by which we come to know God, but the offer is that we may know the

Godhead: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each person of the Trinity is truly

and perfectly God and therefore infinite, but there is a richness to the

Godhead which we are enabled to know and experience. This is what

we were made for, and this is the true life that Jesus has given to those

whom the Father gave him.

This promise shouldn’t be seen as only a future event where we leave

this world and travel to the next. God is creator of both, as he is the

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creator of the universe. This world and all it contains will never fully

satisfy us, and that was never the intention. We were made to know

and experience the Lord and Jesus made it possible for us to begin that

relationship now.

To receive eternal life is not the end of the journey but the beginning of

all that we were created for. We are invited to enter into an intimate

relationship with God where our “knowing him” deepens our

appreciation of him, who is without end.

John 17:4–5, “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work

that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own

presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”

It’s a wonderful feeling to being able to say to someone you love, “I did

what you asked, and it’s now done.” Jesus came to us at the Father’s

request and fulfilled all that was required, because of His love for the

Father, and because they always have the same goal. The Father loved

the Son and gave him all that he created, and he also gave him those

who would follow him. The Son in turn obeyed the Father out of love

and a desire that the Father be glorified.

It was/is a mutually beneficial arrangement, and we are invited into it.

The Son loves the Father and came to us to accomplish the Father's

desire for redemption. In turn the Father gave the Son a name above all

names at the name of Jesus all creation would confess his Lordship. For

what purpose? “To the glory of the Father.”

Jesus knew that his work was complete and all that was left was to go

to the cross. Again, he would do it because of the Father’s love and his

love for the Father and for those who the Father would give him.

There’s another phrase that helps in solidifying this idea of doing the

will of God and that is, “no matter what”.

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In closing let’s read 1 Peter 4: 17-19, “For it is time for judgment to

begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be

the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?    And “If the

righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the

sinner?” Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust

their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.”

If we are to follow the path of Jesus and the Apostles we must come to

God in repentance for being distracted and unfaithful to the call of the

Gospel. It was Jesus’ obedience to the Father and the apostles

obedience to Christ that turned the world upside down. Trouble, pain,

suffering, and grief are all to be expected in this fallen world but turning

to Christ is where we find comfort and the strength to continue until

that day when we are called home. Let’s Pray.