Conversation Points for John 17:1-11

Study Format:
1. What did you hear Jesus offering to you? To us? To the world?
2. What kind of resistance to Jesus did you hear?
3. What will you have to learn to resist or renounce in order to receive what Jesus is offering?

Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• The farewell prayer of Jesus is the theological climax of John’s Gospel. Within it are echoes of themes from all of Jesus’ previous teachings. It also is the pivot point between Jesus’ final teaching and his passion and death. It is grounded in the presence of Jesus’ hour. In the prayer, Jesus spoke as if the “hour” is at the same time already accomplished (17:11-12), imminent (17:1, 5), and in process (17:11, 13), bringing past, present, and future together in one moment.
• V. 1a: up until now, Jesus had been addressing his disciples. Now his attention shifted to God, the reader stands with the disciples as outsiders watching Jesus at prayer.
• V. 1-5, Jesus repeatedly spoke of the arrival of his hour and petitioned God to “glorify your Son.” Unlike the prayers at Gethsemane in the synoptic Gospels, the Jesus in John’s gospel demonstrated no agony at his coming death because he recognized the hour as the ultimate purpose of his work and the completion of his revelation of God.
• “Eternal life” had been the primary description of the gift Jesus brings to those who believe in him in chapters 1-12. Since the start of chapter 13, Jesus replaced the eternal life language with love. Eternal life is finally defined here in chapter 17, the gift Jesus brought was/is knowing/being in relationship with/being one with God.
• V. 4 Jesus reviewed his ministry, emphasizing that his work was to reveal God’s glory, which he had now completed. In v. 5, Jesus made clear that the ultimate goal of his “hour” was to return to God.
• V. 7 underscores the point that God is the central source of all Jesus did.
• The line between the historical and the future disciples is blurred throughout the prayer. In v. 9, when Jesus turns from his own glorification to his prayer for the future life of the followers, we see Jesus praying for ALL disciples, not just the ones alive and present with him in the room.
• “World” (kosmos) in v. 9-11 is not a synonym for earth, but stands for the sphere of the enemies of God. V. 20-23 show that Jesus does have a sense of mission for the world, but that mission is lived out by the disciples for whom he is praying. The disciples work is to make God known in the world.

Works Sourced:
O’Day, Gail. “The Gospel of John.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.