On the night he was betrayed, Jesus Christ said a very important prayer. Many Christians don’t remember it. I didn’t anyway, and as the daughter of a Protestant minister and former wife of a United Methodist minister, it should have been a memorable part of my faith formation. But if someone had asked me what one thing Jesus prayed for on the night of the Last Supper, the night he was betrayed, and the night of his arrest, I would have had to answer, “I don’t know.”
In the Gospel of John chapter 17, Our Lord prays to the Heavenly Father, proclaiming that the hour has come, and then He prays for His fledgling Church, saying:
I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me. John 17: 20-23
(French Painting - The Last Discourse Of Our Lord Jesus Christ - James Tissot - 1836-1902)
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