20 May 26 | Holy Father, Protect Them
He didn't pray to take them out of the world. He prayed to keep them in it.
The Gospel: John 17:11b-19
¹¹ "And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are. ¹² When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled. ¹³ But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. ¹⁴ I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. ¹⁵ I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. ¹⁶ They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. ¹⁷ Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. ¹⁸ As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. ¹⁹ And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth."
Today’s Focus
Jesus prays for the disciples He is leaving in the world, asking the Father to keep them in His name, protect them from the evil one without removing them from the world, and consecrate them in truth through the word, grounding the sending of the disciples in His own sending by the Father.
In the Margins
The hour has arrived. Jesus is about to leave the world and He is praying for those He is leaving behind. The prayer is addressed to the Holy Father, a designation that appears only here in John’s Gospel. The holiness of the Father is the ground of the request that follows. Keep them in your name.
The keeping Jesus asks for is protection in the same name that constituted the disciples as His own. He protected them while He was with them and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, fulfilling the scripture that pointed toward the betrayal. The protection is not a guarantee against suffering. It is a guarantee against being lost to the one who holds them.
He asks that they be kept from the evil one, not taken out of the world. This is a precise request. The disciples will remain in a world that rejected Jesus and will reject them. They do not belong to the world any more than He does. But the prayer is not for removal. It is for protection within the exposure. The community formed around Jesus is sent into the world rather than extracted from it, and what keeps them is the Father’s name rather than a shelter from the difficulty.
The word truth appears three times in close succession. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. I consecrate myself for them so that they may be consecrated in truth. The Greek word for consecrate, hagiazō, is the word for setting apart for God’s purposes, the same word used for the sanctification of the Temple and its vessels. Jesus consecrates Himself for them, setting Himself apart entirely for the purpose of their consecration. The cross is the act of that consecration. What Jesus is about to do is what makes possible the setting apart of the community in truth.
The pattern of sending runs through the prayer in both directions. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. The disciples’ sending is modeled on and participates in the Son’s sending by the Father. They go the way He went, into the world, bearing a word the world did not generate, protected by a name the world does not know, consecrated by the one who gave everything for their consecration.
What this prayer offers anyone carrying the weight of remaining in a difficult world is the reassurance that the request to stay was not made without provision for the staying. The prayer for protection, for consecration, for the joy that is complete, was prayed before the difficulty arrived. The one who asked the Father to keep you in His name knew exactly what you would be walking into when He sent you there.
Reflection Question
In what situation are you asking God to remove you from a difficulty when He may be asking you to trust His protection within it?