When Jesus had said this, he raised his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you, 2 just as you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to all you gave him. 3 Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ. 4 I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. 5 Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began. 6 “I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, 8 because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, 10 and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them.
Jesus completed the work his Father gave him to do and prayed for God to glorify him so that he could glorify the Father by giving eternal life to all the Father gave him. The Father had given the Son the power to give life and to judge (Jn. 5:26-27). Eternal life is knowing the one true God and Jesus Christ (v. 3). Jesus was from God and was with God in the beginning; “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race (Jn. 1:1-4).” Jesus prayed for those who were chosen by God and accepted his teaching. They understood that he was sent by God and that God is the source and object of everything he has told them. They are ready to succeed him. Since the World rejected Jesus and his teaching he did not pray for the world.
Almighty God, we ask that you accept the prayers of those who believe in your Son. We live in the hope that we will be among those who have been chosen and that we will be granted the gift of eternal life when we stand in judgment. This we pray through Christ our Lord. Amen!
References
Chiu, José Enrique Aguilar, et al. The Paulist Biblical Commentary. Paulist Press, 2018.
Brown, Raymond Edward, et al. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Upper Saddle River, NJ, United States, Prentice Hall, 1990.
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