This week, I was thinking of a quote from Dr Samuel Johnson. He said, “Depend upon it Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully”. It is a cheery thought I know, but when time is short, we do tend to recognise what the more important things are and give them priority. When we are rushing out the door, late for a meeting, we don’t tend to think about what our favourite movie franchise is, but rather whether or not we have the papers we need. When someone is saying goodbye to leave on a trip, we don’t talk to them about what shopping we might need next week, we ensure they know that we love them and care about them.

In our gospel reading today, Jesus knows His time is short. Judas has just left the room to betray Him and Jesus knows it’s only a few hours until He will be arrested. It is during this short period that He prays for His disciples. In this prayer we see the deepest concerns Jesus has for them, those worries that are closest to His heart that He prays for in these last moments He has. He prays that as He leaves them in the world, they will be united, they will be equipped for mission and protected, and that they will keep living as He has called them to live. These things are going to be essential for the disciples when they are left in the world after Jesus has left them. As we are the church now, these concerns apply to us too.

Jesus has these concerns because while the church was specifically told they would remain in the world and will face these risks. Jesus knows that if we continue with His mission, we will face challenges. But that’s the point, we are commissioned to continue with Christ’s mission and is a matter of necessity that we engage in this mission with those around us. If we were meant to remain apart from the world, Jesus would not have these concerns for us. It is because we are meant to be involved in the world that give Jesus these concerns. God did not remain apart from the world but came as Jesus to engage with it, as is the church. Jesus did not intend for the church to be a private members club or a refuge from the world but rather a body of people fully engaged in showing God’s love to the world. Jesus knows it will not be easy and we will face challenges that could affect our unity and commitment to the mission but, thanks to the Spirit, we have the answer to His prayer. May we assuage the concerns that Jesus has for the church by being the people we are called to be.