Introduction
There is something strange about this Sunday every year. The celebration of Ascension will have already happened (May 14th this year). And so, this Sunday, Christ has ascended. And yet Pentecost has not arrived. The church finds itself suspended between departure and arrival, between promise and fulfillment, between what has been and what is still coming.
It is a liminal space.
And perhaps that is why this Sunday feels more familiar than we often realize. Because most of life is lived in spaces like this. We live in the “meantime.” We wait for clarity, healing, direction, resolution, and hope. We live in seasons where things are changing and we are not entirely sure what comes next.
That is precisely the kind of moment John 17 speaks into.
Jesus has reached the end of his earthly ministry. The cross is approaching. The disciples can feel that something is changing, even if they cannot fully understand it yet. And in the midst of that uncertainty, Jesus prays.
This prayer sits at the end of Jesus’ farewell discourse in John’s Gospel. After chapters of teaching, promises, warnings, and preparation, Jesus turns his attention toward the disciples themselves. And what the disciples overhear is not strategy, explanation, or instruction. They overhear Jesus praying for them before everything falls apart.
This Sunday invites us to consider what it means to live faithfully in the in-between spaces of life, trusting that even in uncertainty, Christ still holds the church in prayer.
Narrative Context
John 17 is often referred to as Jesus’ “High Priestly Prayer.” It comes immediately after the Farewell Discourse that stretches from John 13 through John 16. Jesus has washed the disciples’ feet. Judas has left to betray him. Peter’s denial has been predicted. Jesus has promised the Advocate, spoken of abiding in love, and warned the disciples that the world will resist them.
Now, before his arrest, Jesus looks toward heaven and prays.
The shift in the narrative is significant. Throughout these chapters Jesus has been speaking to the disciples, but here he begins speaking about them in prayer. The disciples become overhearers of Jesus’ concern, love, and hope for them.
And what Jesus prays for is revealing.
He does not pray that the disciples avoid suffering. He does not pray that they gain power or influence. He does not pray that they fully understand what is about to happen. Instead, Jesus acknowledges the reality they are about to face:
“And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world.”
The disciples will remain in a complicated and fragile world shaped by fear, violence, grief, uncertainty, and division. Jesus is preparing them for the reality that discipleship will continue after his departure.
This prayer becomes a bridge between Jesus’ earthly ministry and the coming birth of the church at Pentecost. The disciples are standing on the threshold of a new reality. Soon they will be entrusted with carrying the story of Christ into the world themselves.
But before any of that happens, Jesus prays for them.
Jesus Prays for the Disciples in the World
One of the most important moments in this text is that Jesus does not pray for the disciples to escape the world. He prays for them within it.
That distinction is one that we as preachers cannot highlight enough.
Christians are often tempted toward one of two responses to the world around them: despair or withdrawal. It is easy to look at political division, violence, exhaustion, institutional decline, anxiety, or rapid cultural change and conclude that faithfulness means insulating ourselves from the world entirely.
But John’s Gospel never allows for that kind of disengagement.
After all, this is the same Gospel that tells us, “For God so loved the world…” The world remains beloved, even in its brokenness.
The disciples are not abandoned to the world; they are entrusted within it.
And perhaps that is what makes this prayer so powerful. Jesus is not praying for ideal circumstances. He is praying for people who are about to live through uncertainty.
That feels incredibly relevant for the church today.
Many congregations know what it feels like to live in-between. Churches are navigating changing identities, aging memberships, questions about sustainability, and uncertainty about the future. Individually, people are carrying grief, burnout, fractured relationships, economic anxiety, and fear about what lies ahead.
There is a temptation to believe that uncertainty itself is evidence of God’s absence.
But John 17 offers a different vision.
Before the disciples face fear and confusion, Jesus prays for them. Before Pentecost arrives in power, there is first this moment of vulnerability and care. Before the church becomes the church in Acts, the disciples are simply people trying to remain faithful in the meantime.
And maybe that is what discipleship often looks like.
Not certainty, but trust.
Not clarity, but abiding.
Not escape, but presence.
Jesus prays, “Holy Father, protect them… so that they may be one, as we are one.”
That unity is not about sameness or uniformity. It is about remaining connected to God and one another in a world that constantly pulls people apart. In John’s Gospel, unity itself becomes a form of witness.
Preaching Possibility
In the meantime
This text offers preachers an opportunity to speak honestly about uncertainty without surrendering to hopelessness.
Many people sitting in pews this Sunday are living in the “meantime.” They are waiting for medical answers, vocational clarity, reconciliation, healing, stability, or direction. Our congregations themselves often feel caught between what once was and what comes next.
And in those moments, it is easy to assume that God’s absence means abandonment.
But John 17 offers a different image.
Before the disciples face grief, confusion, and fear, Jesus prays for them. Before the Spirit arrives at Pentecost, there is this quiet moment where Christ entrusts the disciples to God’s care.
The church is born not out of confidence, but out of being held in prayer.
That may be the promise worth proclaiming this week.
But what does it mean that Christ prays for us?
It’s not that discipleship suddenly becomes easy. It’s not that anxiety disappears. It’s not that the church is removed from the realities of grief, conflict, uncertainty, or change. Jesus does not pray for the disciples to escape the world, but to remain faithful within it.
That is what makes this prayer so important.
Christ’s prayer does not separate us from the world. It roots us more deeply within it.
The disciples are still in the world. They are still vulnerable to loss and fear. They will still experience failure, doubt, and suffering. And yet Jesus prays for them anyway. Not so they can stand above the world, but so they can remain connected to God while living fully within the realities of human life.
Perhaps that is what prayer does here. It reminds the disciples that they are not abandoned in the midst of uncertainty. They remain held in relationship with God even as they continue living in a fragile and changing world.
And maybe that is the deeper promise for the church now as well.
To be prayed for by Christ is not to be removed from the tensions of life, but to be continually drawn back into love for the world that God already loves.
It means we do not face uncertainty alone.
It means our lives still belong to God even when the future feels unclear.
It means that faithfulness is possible even before resolution arrives.
The Gospel does not suggest that discipleship only happens once there’s clarity. Faithfulness happens in the meantime. In the waiting. In the uncertainty. In the changing realities of life and community.
The disciples are still in the world, and Christ is still praying for them.
And we know that remains true for the church now as well.
Before we know what comes next, before Pentecost’s fire and wind, before certainty and resolution, Christ already holds the church in prayer.
Micah Krey 
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