Welcome to Buoy, a Life in Deeper Water podcast.

Episode 78. Jesus Prayed This WHY For Us the Night He Was Arrested (“that the love you have for me… ”)

Hello human.

During Easter, I think most about the cross Jesus died on. Good Friday is a hard day for me, as a believer, as a mother, especially from noon to 3pm when the world went dark. And Jesus hung from the cross, paying the price to save me. To redeem the life I live now.

When we take communion, we are honoring His sacrifice. In His words during the first communion with His disciples, the night he was arrested:

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Jesus called the communion cup the new covenant in my blood. The blood of the covenant is the WHY of God’s story. In Old Testament times a covenant between God and man was sealed in blood.

A Covenant Sealed in Blood

God’s covenant with Abraham was sealed with circumcision.

During the plague of the first-born, the blood of a sacrificial lamb was painted on the door-posts of the Israelites to be a sign to God, when passing through the land to slay the first-born of the Egyptians that night, that He should pass by the houses of the Israelites (Exodus 12:1–28) This was the first Passover.

Then:  God made a covenant with His people at Mt. Sinai.

Exodus 24:3-11:  3 When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.” 4 Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said. He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. 6 Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he splashed against the altar. 7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, “We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey.” 8 Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

In the Old Testament covenant, the blood of the covenant came from animals. As an Israelite this was how you atoned for your sins; about one sixth of the laws under the Mosaic system pertained to sacrifices and offerings.

There were a large number of daily, regular, and annual animal sacrifices offered every year in Israel. All sin had to be atoned for (Leviticus), that was committed by a common person, the priests, the leaders, and the nation as a whole.

On certain occasions, huge numbers of animals were sacrificed. For example, at the dedication of King Solomon’s temple, about 960 BC, the celebrants sacrificed 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep over a two-week period. There were so many offerings that Solomon had to set up additional altars in the temple courtyard (1 Kings 8:63–65). The previous census by Solomon’s father, David, had put the number of able-bodied fighting men over age 20 at 1.3 million (2 Samuel 24:9).

Imagine the scale of such blood sacrifices in daily life. This was central to the Israeli culture.

Sacrificing animals was the way for atonement, and served as a foreshadowing of the New Covenant, as explained in Hebrews 9: 22:  In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

Jesus is the Lamb of God

When we name Jesus as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, it is a blood covering for every sin that has ever happened or will happen. When Jesus came the atonement that had come from slaughtering a lamb was over. He is the atonement.

John the Baptist testified early in Jesus’ ministry:

John 1:29

29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

Imagine what this meant to an Israelite, a Jew, in the times of Jesus.

Our Passover is not the blood of a lamb spread on an Israeli doorpost, like in c. 1446. It is the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God, shed on a cross.

I have never sacrificed an animal for my sin. So this is powerful, to understand the culture of sacrificing animals, and the scale of it. Somehow, it deepens my understanding of the sacrifice Christ made for me.

The New Covenant is the holy precious blood of God’s own Son, sealing the fulfillment of all covenants.

In preparation for Easter, and if you take communion during this time, consider the context and the scene the night before Jesus was arrested.

• It was just before the Passover Festival; Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world.
• He had just washed their feet, predicted his death for a final time, and predicted Peter’s denial three times before the rooster crows. (John 13)
• This was his last night with his disciples before his death.
• His last night to comfort, to assure, to inspire, to teach, to enlighten… to prepare them.

Jesus had just told his disciples that the time is coming that He will no longer speak figuratively. And the disciples were beginning to understand what Jesus came to do. He says He has been comforting them to give them peace, to take heart, that He will overcome the world.

Then He turned to His Heavenly Father. And this is His prayer I want to share with you human, in preparation for Easter.

He Looked Toward Heaven and Prayed

John 17

17 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

Jesus Prays for His Disciples

6 “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8 For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by[c] that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.

13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 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. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by[d] the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

Then, Jesus Prays for All Believers

20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

That night Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane.