What can we learn from the prayers that Jesus prayed?

It has been truly said, "This prayer is solitary among all the prayers of mankind . . . it has no voice of confession, deprecation . . .; no echo, however distant, of recognition of sin, no tone that is touched with a feeling of demerit or defect. There is no intimation of infirmity or entreaty for help".

Thus the great prayer is brought before us. Throughout the Gospel of John, the Lord's glory as a Divine Person is ever kept before us. He is the Son, but ever viewed in the place that He had taken as Man. Thus it is He stands on earth and looks up to heaven as becomes the dependent Man. In all His perfect pathway, while proving by many a word and deed that He was a Divine Person – the Son, yet as the perfect servant in Manhood heaven was always His resource. When meeting the needs of the Five Thousand, "He looked up to heaven" (Mark 6:41). When healing the deaf and dumb, and relieving our sicknesses, He did so "looking up to heaven" (Mark 7:34). When meeting our sorrows He "lifted up His eyes" to the Father (John 11:41). And now, in expressing His desires to the Father, He still lifts up His eyes to heaven. Never ceasing to be the Son, yet, having become flesh, He never leaves the place of subjection and dependence, that becomes Him as Man. Thus, throughout the prayer, as indeed throughout the Gospel, He looks to the Father as the Giver, while He, Himself, ever takes the place of the reciever.

And now let us listen to what this blessed One says — and, indeed, He does say it for us! How sweet to hear what He feels about us to His Father, where there was nothing, so to speak, that could be a bar upon one thought of His heart, where there was the most entire communion between Himself and His Father, — He whose heart beat in perfect unison with His! And we are allowed to listen. He "lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee." Mark the bent of His mind even there. If He asks for glory, what was the object? What was still the desire of His heart? "That thy Son also may glorify thee." Never such a thought as that the glory should terminate even with Him the Son. It was not enough that He had glorified the Father on the earth. Nor was it enough for the Father that He should show His sense of it by glorifying Him in the heavens. "Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee."

It will be noticed that the underlying motive, in the first portion of the prayer, is that the Father may be glorified in the Son; in the second portion, that Christ may be glorified in believers (v. 10); in the closing portion, that believers may be glorified with Christ (v. 22).

For these His prayer goes out, that they may be kept from the evil that is in the world, that they may be sanctified by the truth; yea, know the power of a sanctification which links with heaven and thus separates from earth, a sanctification marked by Himself: "For their sakes, I sanctify Myself." His longings are for the unity of His disciples and for all who are His; a unity of life, of nature and of service too, a unity which shall compel belief on the part of the world.

Secondly, in order that the disciples may live in the consciousness of being guarded by the Father's love, and kept in the holiness consistent with the Father's nature, the Lord further prays that they may be "one, as we." The Lord desires that all His disciples should walk in that oneness of thought and purpose, that ever existed between the Father and the Son. It is evident that if they were divided in thought and purpose they would be no witness to the love and holiness of the Father.

Verse 20 should touch all our hearts. The Lord Jesus had been praying for the little band of disciples that surrounded Him at that moment: He now enlarged His requests to embrace even ourselves. Though nineteen centuries have passed since the first disciples went forth with the word, we have believed on Him as the result of it. Their spoken word has long since died away, but their word in the shape of inspired New Testament writings abides, and it has been the authoritative basis of all Gospel preaching through the years, and it is still that today. It should also touch our hearts that the first of the two requests, which He made for us, was for our unification.

But not only did He pray for His disciples of that day: He adds to them all who would believe on Him through their word, which of course includes every believer following that time, for they have been brought in by the word of the Lord communicated to His disciples and recorded in scripture. He prays for the unity of practical life among them as based on that unity of eternal life that is implied in verse 11. Thus, the unity in nature is spoken of first (v. 11), then the unity of practice (v. 21), then the unity of future glory (v. 23). In verse 21 the desired result of unity in practice is that the world may believe that Christ has been sent by the Father. Though our practice in this is feeble indeed, yet it is seen in measure by the world. May we increase that measure!

Doubtless Satan then suggested to Him to pause and not drink that cup, for it would cost Him His life, and the forsaking of God. He looked into the cup and measured its contents. It was all God's judgment against sin. If He drank it He must be forsaken of God, and be cast off, upon the cross. Not merely was it the physical suffering and sorrow that man could give Him, as they nailed Him to the tree, but the inevitable sense that God and He must part company. Hence as He looked at that cup, He said, "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done." He knew that if He did not drink that cup of judgment upon the cross, you and I would have to drink it in eternity. If He did not drink the cup in our room and stead, there was no deliverance, no salvation, no pardon, no cleansing, possible for you and me. As He looked at that cup He shrank from it in all the perfect holiness of His being, and deprecated it with the utmost intensity. Then He took it, and drank it to the very dregs in the perfection of His love. Blessed Saviour! Well may each redeemed one cry, Hallelujah, I am saved; I am saved by His death. We are saved because He drank God's cup of wrath, to the very dregs, so that He, in tender love and divine righteousness, might put the cup of God's salvation into our hands, and press it to our lips. May we not joyfully say, "What has God wrought?"

Yet in the garden of Gethsemane, as Matthew, Mark and Luke combine to show, the Lord Jesus must face the ordeal that draws forth these words: "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death" (Matt.26:38). How different is this prayer from that of John 17. Prostrating Himself on His face in earnest, agonizing entreaty (Luke 22:41‑44), He anticipates the awful anguish of the cross. Yet His anguish of the cross. Yet His agony even in Gethsemane is deeper than we can understand. In deepest distress He pleads, "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but Thine be done."