The hour is come

 

Chapter 17    Interceding

Jesus’ prayer for Himself     v1-5    “These words spake Jesus , and lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, Father the hour is come: glorify thy Son that thy Son may also glorify thee.”   

Knowing all that lay before them, Jesus enters into intercessory prayer.  He is but a few hours away from the most brutal experience of the crucifixion.  By any standards, this is a unique prayer.  He prayed as a man, also as a mediator, but with the majesty of one equal with the Father.  The subject of His petition is for the salvation (1-10), sanctification (11-19), and glorification (20-26), of His people, all of which will be answered in the course of time.  It has been said that there are many great prayers recorded in the Bible- this being the greatest of all. “There is no voice which has ever been heard, either in heaven or in earth, more exalted, more holy, more fruitful, more sublime, than the prayer offered up by the Son to God Himself ”- (Melanchthon, cited in Boice).  We are privileged now to hear the prayer of the Son of God to His Father.                            

The spontaneous nature of His prayer-“He lifted up His eyes to heaven…”.  This is different to the prayer He gave to His disciples in Matthew chapter 6, where He suggested reverent acknowledgment of God before they entered into petition.  This was to become a pattern prayer for disciples, “Our Father which art in Heaven (transcendency), hallowed be thy name (sanctity); thy kingdom come, (supremacy)-all before we make a single request.  Here we have the prayer of one in equality with the Father, and whose life had been one of constant communion.  We see this from the statements throughout the gospel of John, that He ever lived in the Father’s presence, He simply says “Father”.   The wisdom of Solomon was seen in his advice to all mortals who would enter the presence of God to remember who they were, and who God is, as they approach Him-Ecclesiastes 5v1-2.  We are discouraged from “rolling” into God’s presence flippantly.  The Lord Jesus, however was on equal status, had lived in communion all His life, and was able to petition Him readily. 

The drama of the moment  He says “Father, the hour is come…” Not a literal hour, but symbolic for “the moment has come”, that moment which has been predicted and declared to be the moment of all moments in time.  Several times over He had said “The hour is not yet come…”-2v4; 7v30; 8v20.  The word hour is used to denote occasions of great significance, and the time of greatest significance has come.  “The hour” will include His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and exaltation.  This hour, this defining moment of His mission on earth was to be the most painful, most brutal experience of all, when He would be subject to the cruel torture of men, followed by the wrath of God upon Him to deal with human sin.  Nevertheless it is characterised as glory for it would lead to the glory of the Father’s presence.   He said, “…glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.”  The glory of the Father was at the very heart of His life on this earth, and this thought is sprinkled throughout the gospel.