OUR INTERCESSOR

John17:1 – Jesus spoke these things; and raising His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, so that the Son may glorify You,

I wonder what all Jesus understood that night He prayed in Gethsemane? How much of His eternal communion with His Father was He aware of? How much of the coming glory was real to Him at this moment? If its true that Jesus emptied Himself of His privileges as God when He became a man then this prayer in Gethsemane has to stand out as the greatest declaration of faith of all time. He was not only proclaiming what He had known of His Father before His humanity, He was declaring what He was about to experience with His Father in heaven but this time it would be as a man. To me that is just incredible. If that wasn’t enough Jesus was also asking the Father to bring us in on this relationship. To secure this He would die on the cross, raise from the dead, and then take His place at the Father’s right hand. That’s where He is today, in the place of prayer, praying for all of us. This night in the garden was a foretaste of things to come. Jesus would be restored to His place of glory with the Father, He would be our intercessor. Today that is His full time occupation, He is praying for me. It’s His prayers that have brought me into His glory, His prayers that keep me, and it will be His prayers that usher me into His glory for eternity Here is how Schaff describes this prayer.

“He prays as the mighty Intercessor and Mediator standing between earth and heaven, looking backward and forward and comprehending all His present and future disciples in one holy and perfect fellowship with Himself and the eternal Father. The words are clear and calm as a mirror, but the sentiments as deep and glowing as God’s fathomless love to man, and all efforts to exhaust them are in vain.”

I have been included in this society of love, ushered in by the prayers of Jesus. If this is all true I have to agree with the Apostle Paul. What in this life could possibly separate me from the love of God. He loves me and has brought me into His family of love.