Not of the world
Day 684, Friday, June 26
John Chapter 17 – 18:27
Chapter 17 is a prayer Jesus prays for his disciples. In case we aren’t clear that he includes us in that number along with the original twelve, he says in verse 20, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”
What is this prayer that Jesus prays for the disciples of his day and of ours?
Jesus doesn’t pray that our lives will be easy. Instead, he prays that God will protect us in the challenges. He prays to the Father, “I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.”
If part of that sounds familiar, it is an echo of the words of the Lord’s Prayer: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” The prayer in 17:15 is not that God take us out of the world, which would protect us from exposure to evil, but that he would protect us from being harmed by evil. In the Lord’s prayer, we pray that God not deliberately test us by leading us to temptation, but that he protect us when temptation finds us. In both, there is recognition that temptation will come and that God’s protection is needed.
But what about when we give in to temptation?
Chapter 18 quickly shows us how strong the seductive power of evil is, as two of the inner circle fall prey to it.
Judas betrays Jesus. Peter denies Jesus. If we only had today’s reading to go by, we wouldn’t know what happens next, but we already know both endings. Both Judas and Peter recognize their failures. In Judas, that leads to overwhelming guilt and sorrow, and to suicide.
In Peter, though, denial doesn’t lead to separation. He exemplifies true repentance, not by wallowing in guilt and sorrow, but by turning back to faithfully following Jesus. Ironically, we know that Peter’s repentance and faithfulness will eventually lead him to death, too. But Peter’s death will be followed by triumphant restoration into eternal life. Judas’s death will not.
We pray for God to give us the strength to defeat the temptations that come our way. We also give thanks that he stands ready to restore us when we fail if only we choose to accept that restoration.

Friday meditation

Ecclesiastes 1:1-11
The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem: “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”
What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again. All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.

Prayer focus
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

-Rev. Mark Fleming