Jesus High Priestly Prayer (Part 1a) Series

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus made it clear that His people are expected to pray. He said in Matthew 6:6 “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly”. Not only did Jesus speak to the fact that His people are expected to pray, He also declared that when they pray they can expect an answer. Matthew 7:7 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”

It is very important for us to grasp the fact that our Savior prayed for Himself. There are times when we are ready, willing and able to pray intercessory prayers on behalf of others. At the same time we may struggle to pray for ourselves; we may even think that doing so would be selfish. However, the scriptures say otherwise. In fact, this passage proves that if Jesus prayed for Himself, we certainly should do the same.

Without a doubt we can pray for ourselves in a selfish manner, but the act of praying for oneself in not inherently selfish. As we unpack this passage we will see that Jesus’ motives for praying for Himself were anything but selfish; ultimately His prayer was that God would be glorified through Him.

When Jesus began His High Priestly prayer He said “Father, the hour has come”. Throughout John’s Gospel account Jesus references “His hour”; this is a reference to His death on the Cross. The first occurrence to “His hour” is recorded in John 2:3-4; at the wedding feast in Cana they ran out of wine and His mother “said to Him, "They have no wine." Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come." Later in the Gospel of John there were several occasions when Jesus’ enemies were prevented from seizing Him because “His hour had not come”. This fact proves that everything that happened in the life of Christ was according to God’s divine timeline.

There was an occasion in the Temple when Jesus was teaching that He declared that He had been sent from God. This proclamation infuriated certain Jews who had been sent from Jerusalem and “they sought to take Him; but no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come” (John 7:30). Later as He was teaching in the Temple Treasury the Lord declared that He was the Son of God; though they did not believe and were offended by His words “no one laid hands on Him, for His hour had not yet come” (John 8:20). In John 12 some Greeks came to worship at the feast and they desired to see Jesus. Phillip and Andrew took this matter to the Savior and it was then that He declared "The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.” (John 12:23)

As Jesus and His Disciples observed the Passover meal He “knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John 13:1). Verse 3 of that chapter states that “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God…”