SPEAKER_00: Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, to him who loves us and has washed us clean from our sins with his own blood and made us to be a kingdom of priests to serve God and his Father.
SPEAKER_00: To him be all glory, honor, and dominion forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: He is risen.
unknown: He is indeed.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: Praise be to God.
SPEAKER_00: We've come to our final Sunday of the Easter season.
SPEAKER_00: But on this side of Easter and Jesus' ascension, which we just celebrated this past Thursday, it is good for us to know that our Lord prays for us.
SPEAKER_00: Today's gospel reading is often referred to as his high priestly prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus prayed this before going to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Saint John is the only one who records this.
SPEAKER_00: In this prayer, our Lord is not asking for the Father to remove the cup of wrath that he must drink on our behalf.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, he's praying for those who know him and will know him, who believe in him and will believe in him.
SPEAKER_00: He is praying for the twelve in this prayer.
SPEAKER_00: He is praying for you and me too.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus glorified the Father on earth by accomplishing all that God gave him to do.
SPEAKER_00: And now he will glorify God the Father again.
SPEAKER_00: His hour has come.
SPEAKER_00: According to St.
SPEAKER_00: John's Gospel, we've been waiting for this hour to come from the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: At Jesus' first miracle during the wedding of Cana, when his mother asked for his intervention when the wine had been depleted, he responded, My hour has not yet come.
SPEAKER_00: That wedding feast was not his wedding feast.
SPEAKER_00: But now his hour has come.
SPEAKER_00: This is the hour where he will give his life for his bride, the church.
SPEAKER_00: Now is the hour where he will pour out his blood for the forgiveness of all her sins.
SPEAKER_00: Now is the hour of his crucifixion.
SPEAKER_00: Now the hour has come where he fills our cup of blessing that we bless to the brim every Lord's day, so that we receive his sacrifice on our lips for the forgiveness of our sins.
SPEAKER_00: Now he has saved the best wine for us.
SPEAKER_00: His bride, the church.
SPEAKER_00: His hour is the hour of our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: His hour is the cross.
SPEAKER_00: His hour is the hour that the Son glorifies the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Now is the hour where the Father will glorify the Son in his presence with the glory that he had before the world existed.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' glory is God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: To rescue us from sin and eternal death and damnation and the devil, all those things, the very price that we could not pay.
SPEAKER_00: Glory that demonstrates that our God really is a God of steadfast love, which endures forever.
SPEAKER_00: But as always, Jesus says it best.
SPEAKER_00: The Father has given him authority over all flesh, authority to give eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: He has authority to give eternal life to all those whom the Father has given to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Only Jesus gives out eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: Eternal life comes from no one else.
SPEAKER_00: He holds the keys to death in Hades.
SPEAKER_00: He is the resurrection and the life.
SPEAKER_00: No one, and I mean no one, has life apart from Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Eternal life is knowing the one true God and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent.
SPEAKER_00: Knowing implies an intimate relationship.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing, it's meant from the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: How does one know God?
SPEAKER_00: Through the Son.
SPEAKER_00: How has the Son made himself known to you?
SPEAKER_00: Well, by giving himself to you.
SPEAKER_00: He speaks to his bride the words of life and salvation, and then unites himself to her with his very own body and blood.
SPEAKER_00: By giving to his bride the church all that he has for her, so that she knows with absolute certainty she is one with her Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And those whom the Father has given to the Son to receive the Word made flesh through the means he gives, his word and his sacraments.
SPEAKER_00: There is no other way to be closer to Jesus here on earth.
SPEAKER_00: He gives and you receive.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has a way of making receivers out of his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: He has a way of making receivers out of all of us.
SPEAKER_00: Either we receive what the Lord is giving out or we push it back in his face, we reject it.
SPEAKER_00: He leaves no room in his prayer for I decided for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If we have received Jesus, then we have received the one who sent him.
SPEAKER_00: And if we have Jesus, we have the forgiveness of all our sins.
SPEAKER_00: If we have the forgiveness of our sins, we have life and salvation.
SPEAKER_00: But if you reject what Jesus gives you, you reject Jesus, and there is no salvation.
SPEAKER_00: No Jesus, no forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: No forgiveness, no salvation, nor eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus manifested the name of God to the people whom the Father gave him from out of the world.
SPEAKER_00: The term Father means source.
SPEAKER_00: All that belongs to the Father, he gives to the Son, and the Father makes a receiver out of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Just as the Son receives everything from the Father, so also we receive from Jesus eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus makes receivers out of all of us, too.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus manifests God's name to you.
SPEAKER_00: And to whom else has God's name been made manifest than to those who believe?
SPEAKER_00: And where else have those who have believed been kept in the name of God than in their baptism?
SPEAKER_00: And where else have you been brought from death to life than in the life-giving waters of your baptism?
SPEAKER_00: Where else were you baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: So in your baptism, dear saints, you are renamed with the name of God and made his holy child.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, we all come to the font as infants, whether nine days, nine years, or ninety-nine years old.
SPEAKER_00: Because unless you receive the kingdom of heaven like a little child, even an infant, you can't enter it.
SPEAKER_00: There, right there, we receive life like a child being born from his mother through the baptismal waters as you lie there helpless.
SPEAKER_00: There you have a new name spoken into your ears by the bridegroom before his bride as he bestows you with his own name.
SPEAKER_00: And in baptism, you all are named with the name of God, and in that name he keeps you, because that's where you're covered with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There in baptism, Jesus and his followers are one, even as the Father and the Son are one.
SPEAKER_00: Those who live in their baptismal identities are kept in his name.
SPEAKER_00: They're the ones that are willingly receive all that Jesus gives them to sustain their faith in him, his word, and his sacraments, and lo, he is with them even to the end of the age.
SPEAKER_00: Which means he is with you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus only gives out what the Father has given him to give to his people.
SPEAKER_00: God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Because only Christ is the word of God made flesh.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is giving you himself.
SPEAKER_00: If you have received his word and his sacraments, which are his visible word, well then that's where you have received Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If you have received Jesus, then you receive the one who sent him.
SPEAKER_00: And then to receive what Jesus gives out, well, that imparts faith.
SPEAKER_00: Because you believe because you believe that Jesus came from God.
SPEAKER_00: You believe because you've received what the Spirit of the living God, the Spirit of truth, has revealed to you and preached into your ears, directing your eyes of faith to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Only the Holy Spirit takes what belongs to Jesus and delivers it to you.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's always about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's never not about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You believe because you receive what he is giving out.
SPEAKER_00: Only those whom the Father gave to Christ has the name of God been manifested to do to you.
SPEAKER_00: And they were given to Jesus out of the world.
SPEAKER_00: They were transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the Christ's kingdom, kingdom of light.
SPEAKER_00: And so it is with all of you.
SPEAKER_00: So know this, dear saints, as you leave here today.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus prays for you.
SPEAKER_00: He prays for those who have received his word and his sacraments, where he unites himself to you.
SPEAKER_00: Because he knows you're still in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And in the world there is tribulation.
SPEAKER_00: And you will struggle.
SPEAKER_00: You will struggle against your sin, your own flesh, what the world preaches, and even Satan himself.
SPEAKER_00: So today, he has given himself to you so that you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you have the forgiveness of all your sins.
SPEAKER_00: For where there is the forgiveness of sins, there is eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: Go in peace.
SPEAKER_00: You have received all the gifts that the hour of your Lord has brought to you.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.