Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter (May 17, 2026)
Transcript
This transcript was generated by YouTube AI and edited for clarity.
May only truth be spoken here, and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Please be seated.
Who remembers Judy Blume’s young adult novel? Do we love Judy Blume? I love Judy Blume. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Today we hear Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John’s Gospel, and there’s a meme going around on Facebook with Jesus praying as he does in this Gospel, and the caption says: Are you there, God? It’s me… you. Very appropriate, especially with Trinity Sunday in two weeks.
But it is interesting to pause anytime Jesus is praying, right? Anytime Jesus is praying — Jesus, who is fully human and fully divine — I think it is worth noticing how he prays, what he prays, and remembering that his prayer is meant to become our prayer. His prayer is prayed intentionally in front of his beloved disciples, on purpose, so that they will hear it.
And remember the setting of this scene, which we have been inhabiting over the last few weeks. Let’s go over that again.
The 14th through the 16th chapters of John’s Gospel are what is known as the Farewell Discourse. These are Jesus’ last words to his disciples before he is betrayed and crucified. The setting of this scene is that room by candlelight, an intimate gathering around the table where, on Maundy Thursday, Jesus washes the feet of his disciples and then says to them, “One of you is going to betray me” — and essentially, “You might as well go do it.”
And in the disciples’ sight, one of their own, Judas, gets up, walks out the door, and, as John says, goes out into the darkness. The other disciples sit there stunned.
And one of them speaks up — we know who — Peter. He says, “Well, I don’t know about that guy, but I will never betray you.”
And Jesus says, “I tell you, before the cock crows this night, you will have denied me three times.”
That is the setting: fear, uncertainty, betrayal.
Jesus begins to tell them in this Farewell Discourse that he is leaving them. He says, “Where I am going, you cannot follow.”
Uncertainty. Fear.
And then he says to them, “But remember, you have a commandment.” The commandment I leave with you is this: that you are to love one another as I have loved you.
You are to love one another as I have loved you.
And with Jesus going away, we have to imagine that the disciples — like us — are wondering, especially in the presence of their own failures and betrayals: How can we follow this commandment to love one another as he loves us?
And you remember last week that Jesus said to them: “I am going, but I will not leave you comfortless. I am sending to you another Advocate, someone who will be present on your behalf, who will be active in your life as I have been, and who will guide you into all truth.”
And that Comforter is the Holy Spirit.
So Jesus promises, in this moment of grief and fear and darkness for the disciples, that comfort is coming, that guidance is coming, that hope is coming for those who feel bewildered and lost. He says to them again and again over these chapters: you will be comforted somehow. You will be with me. I will be with you. There will be guidance. There will be comfort.
And having said all these things to them, in the 17th chapter he no longer addresses the disciples, but lifts his eyes to heaven and prays in their presence.
So that is what we are hearing today: the prayer that comes after the teaching.
There is so much in this prayer, and you may want to go home and read the full 17th chapter of John. But today I want to focus on one line that tugs at my heart every time.
Jesus says to God: “They were yours, and you gave them to me.”
What he is essentially praying is a prayer of gratitude for the people who have been part of his human life. They were yours, God. They are your children, and you gave them to me to love, and to care for, and to know, and to tend.
Imagine how the disciples, as bewildered and frightened as they were, might have felt when they heard this.
We are God’s, and God gave us to Jesus to love.
And he does.
And he shows us how to love one another.
And I think we are meant to hear Jesus praying this prayer on our behalf too. As that opening hymn reminds us: there in heaven he opens his mouth to bless us — still praying for us, still loving us, still sending love into our hearts here on earth.
We are God’s, and we have been given to Christ to be cared for and to be loved.
And being the Body of Christ, baptized into his reality, these become our own words. They open our eyes in wonder and invite us to look around at the people in our lives, at our neighbors, at the creatures of the earth, and to pray with gratitude and wonder:
All this, God, is yours. All these are your beloved children, and you have given them to me — for 40 years, or 50, or 60, or 70, or 80, as many as I might have.
These people, these precious children, are given into my own hands to love, to care for, to tend.
They are God’s.
And what a miracle that God has given them to us with love and trust.
When Jesus takes his disciples onto the Mount of Olives and in their sight ascends into heaven, remember what his last words are. He says to them, essentially, that commandment I have given you still stands:
Love one another as I have loved you.
And remember: you are going to have power to do that.
“Power will come upon you,” he says, “when you receive the Holy Spirit.”
And right now we are in that season of waiting, where the Church waits for the reception of that Spirit.
On Thursday we celebrated the Ascension, where Christ ascends into heaven — or as the poet Malcolm Guite says, where he takes us with him “to the heart of things.”
And as we see him go, he says to us: You will have power to do the work I give you to do when the Spirit comes upon you, when the love of God is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which is given to us.
And ten days from Thursday — next Sunday, Pentecost — we celebrate and experience the presence of that Spirit in our lives, giving us the power to follow that commandment.
As he ascends into heaven, he says to the disciples: “You will be my witnesses — here in Jerusalem, and then in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
You will be witnesses to the great commandment: that we love one another. That we walk through this world in awakening wonder at the God who made all of this glory.
Go outside and look up into heaven. Look at your neighbor’s face. And pray, as he prayed for us and with us: All this is yours, and you gave it to me.
And so by the power of the Spirit, we will love one another as he loves us.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.