When You Pray: A Study on Prayer From Kelly Minter, Jackie Hill Perry, Jen Wilkin, Jennifer Rothschild, Jada Edwards, and Kristi McLellandExemplo

The Last Supper: Eden’s Shalom in Unity

By Kristi McLelland

Almost all of John 17 (with the exception of verse 1a) are words prayed by Jesus to the Father on behalf of Himself and His followers. The meal was over, and He had said everything He wanted to say to His disciples. In mere moments they would get up from their Middle Eastern pallet and make their way to Gethsemane.

Knowing that Gethsemane, arrest, trial, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension awaited Him, Jesus prayed. And it was a powerful and intentional prayer. Jesus began this prayer much like He began His model prayer, by acknowledging the glory of God the Father. He also reminded His followers of His purpose in coming to earth in the first place—to unite people to God, a righting of the wrong done in the garden of Eden. This is the work, the mission, Jesus would command the disciples to join Him in (Matt. 28:19-20).

After praying for Himself, Jesus transitioned to a prayer of petition on behalf of His disciples. How would His followers survive the days, weeks, months, and years to come? How would they live forward in a world without the everyday, physical presence of Jesus in their lives? Jesus prayed the answer.

The most important prayer Jesus had for His disciples in this critical moment was that they would be one, that they would be unified.

"May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you.May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me."

John 17:21 (CSB)

It moves me deeply to read these words by Jesus and to see Jesus contending for them in prayer. He was digging deep by praying something for them, over them, and into them that went all the way back to Eden and extends all the way forward to Revelation 19–22—oneness and unity. This is a story that began in the garden and ends in the garden-city.

Verses 20-21 of Jesus’s prayer in John 17 honestly bring me to tears. Jesus’s prayer for His disciples includes a prayer for you and for me! And He prays the same thing for us that He prayed for His immediate disciples who were physically present with Him in the world.

This is Jesus, the Son of God, praying for YOU and ME in the Bible! On that special night, the very night of the famous Last Supper, Jesus was thinking about us, about all of the people who would believe in Him because of the faithfulness of His disciples and the faithfulness of God to answer this prayer.

Oneness is the way of the kingdom of God in the world. Gospel-centered, kingdom-oriented unity has always been a unity within diversity. Unity does not occur when we become the same. True, robust, healthy and vibrant unity happens within our unique and diverse expressions. The church is best expressed as a bouquet of unique flowers rather than twelve red roses. We are better together.

Jesus prayed we would be one. Let’s do all we can to honor Him as followers of Jesus seeking oneness, unity, harmony, wholeness, flourishing, and delight. I pray our oneness and unity will give the world a taste of ancient Eden and a future taste of the new heaven and new earth fully realized.

What are two takeaways you have about prayer from Jesus’s prayer in John 17?

When You Pray Today

Think about the two takeaways you had at the end of today’s study. Use both of those as points of emphasis as you spend time now with the Lord in prayer.

For more of this study by authors Kelly Minter, Jackie Hill Perry, Jen Wilkin, Jennifer Rothschild, Jada Edwards, and Kristi McLelland, visit lifeway.com/whenyoupray.