SCOPE OF JESUS'S HIGH PRIESTLY PRAYER IN JOHN 17, THE

Encounter, Winter 2006 by Janzen, J Gerald

The prayer of Jesus in John 17, often called his high priestly prayer, comes at the end of his lengthy discourse following the Last Supper with his disciples. It is unfathomably rich in its implication and inexhaustible in its potential for explication. In this essay I wish to address just one question: what is the scope of Jesus's priestly intercession? According to Exodus 28, when the priest enters the holy place he bears the names of the twelve tribes of Israel "upon his shoulders...[and]...upon his heart...to bring them to continual remembrance before the LORD" (Exod. 28:12, 29).1 Who, in John 17, does Jesus bear upon his shoulders and upon his heart, and to what end? Who and what is the burden of his priestly prayer?2

In Jesus's high priestly prayer, words, images, and themes introduced as early as the Prologue, and receiving progressive elaboration in the course of the intervening chapters, come to climactic expression. Before turning to John 17, therefore, it will be helpful to make a few brief observations about the thematic context of this prayer in the Fourth Gospel. First, in 1:14 Jesus is portrayed in terms of the Israelite sanctuary which God in Exodus 25:8 calls on Moses to have Israel construct. There, God says to Moses, "Let them make me a sanctuary [miqdash, "holy place"] that I may dwell [shakan, literally, "tent"] in their midst."' According to John 1:14, "the Word4 became flesh and dwelt [eskenosen, literally, "tented"] among us, and we beheld his glory,...full of grace and truth." The presence of God's glory in that tent recalls Exodus 40:34-35, which tells us that when Moses had "finished the work" of building the tent (40:33), "the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle."

Second, the Israelite sanctuary derives its sanctity-is "holy" (qadosh, hagios)-in virtue of the indwelling presence of "the Holy One of Israel" (Isaiah's favored term). Other persons, actions, or objects are termed holy in virtue of their appropriate relation to the sanctuary. Likewise in John, holiness is attributed to God (John 17:11), to Jesus (6:29) whom God consecrated and sent into the world (10:36), and to the Spirit whom the Father sends in Jesus's name (14:26) and who is given to those baptized by Jesus (1:33) and breathed on them by him (20:22). In the prayer in John 17, Jesus prays on behalf of his disciples, "sanctify [hagiason] them in the truth; thy word is truth...And for their sake I sanctify [hagiazo] myself, that they also may be sanctified [hegiasmenoi] in truth" (17:17-18).

Third, we may note that, given the sanctity of the sanctuary, one of the tasks of its priests is to teach, interpret, and apply to individual cases the covenant laws as they pertain to issues of sanctuary-related purity. These laws are concentrated above all in Leviticus, which provides criteria in its laws for distinguishing between the clean and the unclean, pure and impure, and makes provision for cleansing/purifying worshippers who have become unclean/impure. In John's Gospel, the theme of purity/cleansing appears first at the wedding feast of Cana, where Jesus makes celebratory wine out of water standing there for purposes of purification (katharismos) (2:6). It arises again in the report of a discussion between the followers of John the Baptist and a Judahite over questions of purifying; and it seems that this discussion is related to baptismal practices (3:26-30). It appears again in chapter 13, where Jesus washes the feet of those who have been guests at his table (13:10-11). The manner of its last appearance, in 15:3, "You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you," suggests the intimate association of the acts of "cleansing" and "sanctifying," for in 17:17 Jesus says, "Sanctify them in your truth; your word is truth."

Fourth, we should note that the Word that "becomes flesh and tents among us" with sacral connotations, is the same Word that in the beginning was with God and was God, through whom all things were made, and whose life is the light of all humankind (1:1-5). Just as the Priestly tabernacle tradition of Exodus 25-31, 35-40 is anchored in the Priestly creation story of Genesis 1,5 so the sacral tenting presence of the Word in the world is anchored in the activity of the Word in cosmic creation and universal human experience.

This brief survey is meant to suggest that the priestly character of Jesus's prayer is intrinsic to its purpose, and poses in a special way the question of its scope. For it is of the essence of the thematics of sanctuary, priest, and purity that distinctions be drawn between those persons and things that fall within the boundaries and those that fall outside the boundaries of the sacral community. To ask again, then, who does Jesus pray for, and to what end? Is the scope of Jesus's prayer similarly circumscribed, or is it coextensive, redemptively, with the scope of the Word's creative activity in 1:3-5?

The prayer seems to answer that question quite clearly, and as one might expect from the imagery of the shoulder-pieces and breastplate in Exodus 28. Jesus prays for his followers who have come to believe in him (17:9) and those who will come to believe in him through the word and witness of his followers (17:20). When Jesus says, in 17:9, "I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me," this seems to settle the matter. The scope of Jesus's high priestly prayer is exactly analogous to the scope of the prayer of the high priest of Exodus 28. Raymond Brown notes that Jesus prays for his own glorification (17:1), for his disciples (17:9), and for those who believe through their preaching (17:20). And he notes Feuillet's observation that in Leviticus 16:11-17 the high priest "prays for himself, for his house or priestly family, and for the whole people."6 But the matter is not that simple. As one follows the interconnections that link various words, phrases, and themes in this chapter, and throughout the Johannine literature, one begins to wonder whether wider implications are intimated and left for the reader to draw out by inference. As we shall see, the Johannine literature may play off of texts such as Leviticus 16 in just such a direction. I shall begin with verses 20-23 and see where they lead.