“Jesus the Priest”
By Rev. Dr. Jason Byassee
Sunday, March 23, 2025
Reading: John 17:11-23
11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.
17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in the truth. 20 I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, 21 that they all may be one. As you, Father, 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 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given to me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you have loved me before the foundation of the world.
A student of mine wondered out loud why churches like ours love Christmas and Easter so much. He thinks he knows why: at Christmas, Jesus is a baby. Can’t talk yet. Good Friday—Jesus is on the cross, can’t talk much. Even Easter—the message is brief and delivered by angels: go and tell everyone the world is new. Jesus: not talking. We like Jesus best without the words. No one ever says to a preacher, “You know that sermon should have been longer.” Even in our great green window of Christ—speaks wordlessly. No talking. Just knocking. Because when Jesus opens his mouth, we don’t know what to make of it. Or we do and don’t want to do it. Love your enemies? Sell all you have and give to the poor? The first will be last. If anybody’s ever gotten their head around any of those things, I’m not aware of it. Jesus saves but he first befuddles.
Take our passage for today. You stopped listening before the second verse, didn’t you? I know because I did the same. This is the Bible, we believe it, we talk about it endlessly but it’s hard work. The great literary critic Erich Auerbach said, “The Bible is harder than it ought to be.” As a book to live by, it’s remarkably obscure so we preachers try to clarify matters. ‘It’s not so hard as all that,’ I know Greek, it means this. But even with the best expertise, God is still baffling. So let me bring a little expertise, so we can all stand back and say, “Hmm, okay, that’s even harder than we thought.”
We are in a series here at TEMC called “The Stuff in the Middle”. Rabbi friends challenged us—you focus on Jesus getting born and getting raised. The stuff in the middle is the Jewish stuff. More of that. Yes ma’am. One of the most Jewish things Jesus does is act as a priest. Our Jewish elder siblings have no more priests because there’s no more temple after the Romans destroyed it in 70 AD. We Christians all agree with one another that Christ is our great high priest. The more we dig into scripture, into Jesus, the more Jewish we get. What a blessing.
The speech here is really a prayer for us, his followers, for after he’s gone. Jesus describes the world as a dangerous place. It crucifies and destroys. Where do you and I live? The world. So, Jesus prays for our protection.
I spend most of my worrying hours on the safety of those I love. But no faith, nobody, can promise total safety, that’s not how the world works. Jesus prays for us and those we love. And that’s stronger than anything else. Just for the record, the most famous verse in the whole Bible says this, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son . . .” However dark it is, God loves it, sends his Son for it, “so that whoever believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.” Sure, the world is deranged. Canadians especially will amen right now—our country is having an existential moment, aren’t we? I love our current outbreak of patriotism—even Quebec joining in. But a Christian answer to an existential threat is not just “muscle up.” That might be necessary. But it’s also “yep, that’s the world, it crucifies. Only Christ overcomes the world.”
In John, Jesus shows his glory with signs: water to wine, healing the blind, feeding 5000, all signs. But you know what his greatest sign is? Washing his disciples’ feet. That’s his glory: lowly service of those who betray you. Okay his even greater sign? His cross, being lifted up to die. Endless wine is popular. Limitless bread will make you king. Endless service and suffering: who wants that? God calls it glory.
Jesus also talks here about sanctifying, about holiness, what’s al that about? This passage is sometimes called Jesus’ high priestly prayer. Our window depicts Christ knocking on the door to our overgrown hearts. But the window also depicts something else we miss. Christ is shown as a high priest. He has Aaron’s breastplate on. Aaron was our first priest. God tells Aaron to wear a breastplate with twelve precious stones, one for each tribe of Israel. Aaron wears Israel over his heart before God. When Christ knocks on our door, he wears Israel on his heart, and so does Jesus. Israel is God’s people, precious and chosen, through whom God saves the world. When Jesus comes into our hearts, he brings all these other people with him. Israel and then all humanity. The world is a shambolic mess that crucifies. And God loves it enough to save it—through Israel and his Son and even us.
Sanctify: it means make holy. Good. Whole. Jesus prays that we, his people, would be good. That’s a hard prayer. I usually pray for God to solve my problems—if necessary, by adding to someone else’s problems. Jesus prays that we’d be holy, happy, and good, that the whole world might also be holy, happy, and good. One of our church’s children taught me something recently. You know how we ask kids what they want to be when they grow up? Impossible question. Someone asked one of our kids that and you know what she said? You want to be a CEO? Prime minister? Firefighter? No. She said when I grow up, I hope to be a good friend. That’s what Jesus is praying for, that we’d be as good as that young girl he provided to show us all the way.
Jesus as priest, a high priestly prayer—so what’s a priest? A priest conducts traffic between heaven and earth. Goes to God for us and returns from God with blessing. Other Christian churches call their clergy priests. Makes sense. But most Protestants don’t use that language. Because Jesus Christ is the only priest we need. He comes from God for us. Then he goes to God for us. And takes us with him. He wears Israel on his heart, as a representative of all humanity. That’s infinitely more than I or Joanne or Dayle or Elaine or any church leader could do. Jesus drags humanity to God. That’s all the priest we need.
See: I can tell you some stuff, but I can’t make this passage easy. Or the gospel easy. One friend says the gospel is simple but not easy. Simple: God loves the world. Not easy: we have to love the world too. The world that crucifies and rejects. Because God loves the world and is dying to save it.
I was away the last two weeks. It’s a little alarming how well the church gets on without me, I’ll try not to be oversensitive about how good the rest of the staff is. I visited Leipzig in former East Germany because of this story. The Soviet government behind the iron curtain hated Christianity. The GDR premier destroyed a glorious medieval church on a whim—that church is in the way of the revolution, and four days later it was dynamited, the plaza was renamed Karl Marx Square. That was in 1968. But mostly the communists figured Christianity would die off on its own, just a few old ladies left. Another church in Leipzig called St. Nicholas started meetings in the early 1980s to pray for peace every Monday at 5:00 pm. Even the GDR didn’t mind: who’s against peace? Peace for them meant a communist world, with no churches: why not? For years at St. Nicholas a few people came Mondays at 5:00. Three people. Seven. Two. Should we quit? No one’s much coming. Nah, let’s keep going. Jesus says you only need 2-3. But then something happened. In the mid 80s two or three people became two or three hundred. In the late 80s it became 10,000. Too much for one church, even a giant one, to hold, so they took to the streets with candles to pray for peace. Then it became 40,000. Then 100,000. Most East Germans pirated West German media and so saw the demonstrations asking for elections and freedom to travel so they joined in and copied.
Now the Stasi, the East German secret police, knew about these meetings from the start. Police states always know. They’d had 100s of agents there, then 1000s. No surprise. But here’s what is surprising. They wouldn’t crack down. Didn’t open fire. Could have. Maybe even wanted to. Just for perspective, the Soviets killed a lot more people than the Nazis—granted, they had more time in power. But if you’re holding a candle, you can’t also hold a weapon. The head of the Stasi said later “We were ready for anything from the west: soldiers, tanks, even nukes. We were not ready for prayers and candles.” Communism was exposed for the moral sham it was, and the Berlin Wall fell.
That’s God loving the world so much that resurrection breaks out early.
Most East Germans weren’t Christian. The state was officially atheist, Christianity was barely legal and could get you in trouble. Most are not Christian in Leipzig now. But they longed for freedom, dignity, and hope. As all people do. For a peace not built on lies. That’s what we’re made for. You know the only one who can grant those things? Jesus. And sometimes he gives out through all the wrong people. A prayer meeting of mostly atheists with candles standing down the might of the Soviet Union. The USSR that I and most people in this room grew up terrified of. Remember those nuclear drills where we hid under our desks, like that would help? What if a teacher said, “Don’t worry, a prayer meeting will make this go away.” We thought only more weapons could do that.
My favourite definition of Methodism, our heritage here at TEMC, is Methodism is a prayer meeting that got out of hand. A few university students met for prayer and now there are a billion or so Methodists worldwide (counting our Pentecostal offspring). In Leipzig, a prayer meeting got out of hand and the world got better. Prayer meetings still go at St. Nick’s Mondays at 5:00. Mostly for Ukraine and Russia now. Maybe we need em to pray for us and our southern neighbours, eh?
The passage for today sounds wordy and obscure. But it’s why our church exists at all. That is, the United Church of Canada. Jesus prays for us, his future followers, “that they all may be one ... so that the world may believe.” That’s a church in Vancouver with the words in Latin. Jesus’ prayer that we might all be one was the reason Methodists and Presbyterians and Congregationalists merged 100 years ago in 1925 to form the United Church of Canada. Jesus asks God to make us as One as He and God are. To fold us into the internal life of the Trinity. If that’s what Jesus longs for, how then can our churches compete, or run each other down, or anybody else down?
We Protestants found this out by accident on the mission field in Africa. Methodists would show up and bump into Presbyterians. Anglicans would send over and say hey, what are you Lutherans doing here? So European communions got together and said okay, you Lutherans get Madagascar. Anglicans y’all got Nigeria. Methodists Cote Ivoire, Presbyterians Ghana, and so on. Catholics need not apply. They were bad too. And the most vibrant churches in the world are the missionary children of those places: South African churches gave the world Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. Lutherans I met in Germany told me that the largest Lutheran church in the world is in Ethiopia, and Africa’s where all their growth is coming from. Europe’s Christian population has evaporated. Africa’s is booming. You may know that the Middle East used to be almost entirely Christian, North Africa too. In 500 years, people will say “did you know Europe and North America used to be almost entirely Christian?” People will be stunned. Really? Christianity? That African religion?”
Here in Canada, as Europeans migrated west, we’d get to some small village on the prairie, and there’d be five churches. Guys, there are only 200 people here. Let’s cooperate. Merge. So, we did. And we drew on this prayer of Jesus—if we are one, the world might believe. The thinking was that one United Church of Canada would be like the Church of England or the state church in Germany—advise the authorities on how to rule a Christian realm. And for a minute it worked, I guess. The United Church was sort of like the Canadian senate. Prime ministers called us for advice (or at least we thought they should). We sent out press releases and expected them to be read.
Now, there was nonsense in all this. European churches divvying up Africa was a lot like the Berlin conference in 1884 that divided up colonial empires: France you get Algeria. England you get Rhodesia. Germany you get Namibia. There might be no greater swear word in our culture right now than colonial. Here in Canada, we weren’t just building a state church. We were competing with Roman Catholics. In the early 20th century waves of immigrants were coming from newer places: Italy, Ireland, Portugal. Catholic places. There were real fears that combined with Catholic Quebec, Canada would be taken over by the papacy. And if there was one thing Protestants all agreed on it was that the pope is bad. So, we muscled up against the Catholics. Do you see what we did? We took a European cultural scar 400 years old, built on a pile of bones, and we retraced it here in the King’s Dominion of Canada. I don’t have to tell you we didn’t ask indigenous peoples for their input.
Friends, we’re human beings. To call us imperfect is too nice. We’re sinners. We harm everything we touch. Even at our best we’re doing harm we don’t see. And Christ dies for us. Who don’t deserve it. And makes us One with God, and with those we despise, whom Christ is also making new. I guess whether this is good news depends on how you feel about that.
I’ll close with another story from my time in Europe. I also went to Taizé, a little village in Burgundy near Cluny. Cluny was the most powerful monastery in the world for centuries. It was more powerful than the country it was in—it had more land, more soldiers, more say. Not sure Jesus’ people should be known for that kind of power—that’s how the crucifying world is powerful. More arms and more bluster and more guns. Cluny closed with the French Revolution in 1790 after a 900-year run. It’s a ruin now. But Taizé is a new sort of Cluny. No soldiers. No arms. They wouldn’t even take money if you offered it. It’s about 100 brothers, Protestant and Catholic both, healing that awful scar. If Christianity wounded Europe and the world, maybe only Christianity can heal it, in this slow, quiet way. I was there on a light week for pilgrims. Only 1200 Portuguese teenagers. They sometimes gather 100,000 young people at a time at Taizé. There is a hunger afoot y’all—show something authentic and the kids will find you.
Taizé was founded in World War II because Christians were slaughtering each other and everybody else. Let’s instead pray and sing for peace. You’ve probably heard Taizé’s chants. They’re haunting.
It was a Protestant named Roger Schutz who founded Taizé in 1942 and immediately sheltered Jews from the Gestapo in Nazi-occupied France. Right after the war, Taizé tried to protect German POW’s from French reprisals. Anywhere there’s been violence in Europe, Taizé has been there working for peace with nothing more than chants and candles and prayers. That’s the kind of army Jesus enlists. Brother Roger started with just two others. Prayed alone for decades. The president of France and the chancellor of Germany attended his funeral. A Roman Catholic cardinal presided. That cardinal often taught that unity isn’t something we manufacture with mergers. It’s a gift God has already given in Christ. One pope called Taizé—a Protestant initiative, “that little springtime.”
There’s a famous description from the great French philosophe Voltaire of how religion started. Voltaire said religion started when the first fool met the first knave. The villain duped the fool and that’s all religion has ever been: Cheating the gullible with mumbo jumbo. Often enough we’ve been that but let me suggest something different. Religion started when the first person looked at the stars and said “wow, who am I gonna thank for that?” When the first mum put the first baby to her to her breast and said, “this is too much goodness for there to be no one behind it.” When a Roman centurion gazed up at a dying Jew on a cross and said, “so that’s what God is like.” Of course, all good things are scarred in our world—things fall from the sky and do damage, mums and children suffer and die. God’s good creation is damaged and damaging. That’s why we have Israel and Jesus as priest—to repair what we ruin. That’s what Jesus our high priest is doing right now: mending back together what we rip apart.
Maybe we need prayers for peace once a week here—over against the bombast and violence. Like in Leipzig. Maybe we need to pray for baptized people not to kill one another or others—that’s a start. Like in Taizé.
But maybe no more maybes. Here’s a certainty. Jesus Christ is praying for us right now as our high priest. And his prayer is for goodness for everyone. Absolutely everyone. And he will get what he prays for one day. Very soon. Nothing could ever be surer. Amen.