Brian Devereaux ’24 – Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

Scripture
John 17:1-8
1 After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. 5 So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

6 “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you, 8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.

Devotional
“That Your Children May Glorify You”

Jesus opens His prayer stating that “the hour has come” (v.1); so, family, let that be a message to us: start now! Let our dying to self and flesh—whether by abstaining, fasting, or any other way we endure the wilderness with Jesus this Lenten season—be a participation in glorifying the Father with the Messiah this very hour. I would encourage us, the Body of the Messiah, to join with Him in praying for the glorification of the Father through our lives.

Our prayers for the glorification of the Father must be joined with action this Lenten season; for in the same way, as Jesus prays that the Father be glorified (v.2), He also glorifies the Father in completing His work (v. 4). N.T. Wright describes glorification this way: “Being ‘glorified’ means, simultaneously, being filled with God’s own personal presence and power by the Spirit, and being enabled to exercise the vocation of . . . image-bearing human beings.”1

This glorification that we need to participate in this Lenten season is the opening concern of Jesus’ prayer here. The Son completely glorified the Father on earth, and we have an opportunity to show a world bound in pain the healing balm of the Father’s glory. Jesus states that He brings the Father’s glory by giving life in the age to come, and, “This is life in the age to come: that they may know You, the only true God, and the One who you sent, Jesus the Messiah” (v.3).

We can extend knowledge of the Father to our world through the churches’ common practices of Lent. This Lent, you can intimately know the Father through participating in the finished work of the Messiah—through fasting and abstaining alongside the community of faith. Let this intimate knowledge spring to life in the self-sacrificial love of others all around you, so that we all may glorify Him!

1 N.T. Wright, Into The Heart Of Romans: A Deep Dive Into Paul’s Greatest Letter (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2023), 15.

Prayer
Good, loving God—Father, Son, Holy Spirit—I pray that the saints would join together this Lenten season to glorify Your name—the name that was glorified fully in the life, death, and resurrection of your Son. Guide us in our practices of abstinence, fasting, and solitude as we prepare to celebrate the resurrection from the dead. We pray, King Jesus. Amen.