Today’s Sunday is between Ascension which we celebrated on Thursday and which we heard about again in the Epistle, and Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came in tongues of flame. It is therefore an ‘in-between Sunday’, which can feel like being in limbo (though obviously not in the Catholic sense!). However the disciples did not seem to feel in limbo but instead returned to Jerusalem and devoted themselves to prayer as they waited for the power of the Holy Spirit to come upon them. This is the first lesson that we can learn from today’s Bible readings. If we are unsure of the future turning to God in prayer is a very good idea!

The Gospel passage that we heard comes after Jesus has described himself as the True Vine and has explained about the work of the Holy Spirit. He is about to be arrested and this is, as it were, his last conversation with his Heavenly Father before he is crucified. It contains part of what is sometimes called ‘the High Priestly Prayer.’ This is because it is making reference to the intercession that was made by the Jewish High Priest before God for the whole people. Here Jesus is consecrating both himself and the disciples to God the Father. It also echoes the Lord’s Prayer, stressing that it is through, and for, the Father that Christ’s work on earth has been done as he returns to heaven. Later in the passage Jesus asks that his followers be delivered from evil.

It is perhaps no surprise that Jesus, when facing execution, is very concerned about his disciples, much more concerned than he is about his fate. This is something else that we can learn – not to be self-obsessed but to look outwards with care and compassion and to pray to our heavenly Father as Jesus did. Thinking of others before ourselves has double benefits – we can support them in prayer and in doing so we take note of the bigger picture, which can often help to put our own problems into perspective.

Jesus must have been very concerned at times that he would be entrusting the spread of the story of God’s love to these twelve men. Over and over again as he explained things to them they got hold of the wrong end of the stick. There were flashes of comprehension, such as when Peter declared that Jesus was the Messiah, but this was quickly followed by his denunciation that Jesus would be killed by the chief priests and scribes. Or the time when James and John (or was it their Jewish mother?) were arguing about where they should sit in heaven.

Jesus had done everything humanly possible that he could to prepare these disciples and now it was important that he supported them with prayer. If you have ever doubted the power of prayer just look how those disciples have changed since Good Friday. Prayer is such a crucial part of our Christian journey and yet it is often neglected. I have only met the new Bishop of Chelmsford a couple of times but it is immediately clear that here is a deeply spiritual man who radiates God’s love and concern. I have no doubt that this is because he considers prayer a priority, and more than that, as a life-line because he knows that this is the only way he can achieve all that God wants to see in his life and in his diocese. Bishop Stephen has written ten golden rules of prayer which can be found by clicking on the link here. I commend them to you.

One of the things that struck me as I read through the Gospel passage is that when Jesus asked his Father to protect those for whom he had charge he did not make any exceptions. He knew that one of the disciples would betray him but he didn’t single him out for different treatment. The Gospels all describe the act of betrayal from Judas and they have their own explanation, which is usually that Satan entered Judas, but only Matthew writes about Judas’s suicide. If we had carried on a little further in the Acts reading today we would have read a slightly different version of his death. The facts remain, however, that Judas was devastated by what he had done in betraying his Lord.

I suspect I am not alone in finding Judas a little bit of a puzzle. I do not want to explore his reasons for betraying Jesus but I do want to consider why he acted the way that he did after he heard that Jesus had been condemned to death by Pilate. Judas had of course been the man who had handed Jesus over to the Jews, or at least made it possible, but all the disciples, except for John, deserted Jesus at about this point. And yet Peter went down to the tomb where Jesus had been laid on that first Easter morning when Mary came and told him and John that the tomb was empty. And later on he sat and talked with Jesus on the beach, as they had many times before the crucifixion, and received his commission. Within that commission he was warned by Jesus that he would die for his faith and yet Peter seemed not to be worried by this. The crucifixion and resurrection had changed Peter considerably and it would seem that the prayer that Jesus had prayed just before his arrest had borne amazing fruit.

But what about Judas? Why did he commit suicide? Was his sin too grave to be forgiven? I think that the answer to that may be that Judas couldn’t forgive himself. He had betrayed Jesus for whatever reason, but when the consequences of his action became apparent he could not deal with his guilt.

In Matthew’s Gospel we are told that Judas tried to give the thirty pieces of silver back to the chief priests because he had ‘betrayed innocent blood.’ The chief priests couldn’t accept them as they were blood money and so Judas’ repentance was rejected. Perhaps it was this that he couldn’t cope with. He had asked for redemption and the priests had turned him down. But I wonder why he didn’t remember that Jesus had so often been at variance with the priests at the Temple. So often he had challenged their rules. If only Judas had remembered this and had remained alive until Easter morning. Then he, like the other disciples, would have begun to understand that the crucifixion was not an unforeseen tragedy but an integral part of God’s plan of salvation. Guilt can be very destructive and we need to keep spreading the message that our God is not a God who condemns but a God who loves and saves and heals. It is very important that our church is a place where all are welcome because all of us need to be forgiven and loved.

In the same way that Jesus showed how he had total faith in the disciples to spread the Good News of Salvation, he has the same faith that each one of us can achieve amazing things if we rely on him as he prayed later on in the chapter:

If we turn to God in prayer and listen to what He instructs us to do we can continue to change the world. As Desmond Tutu put it in ‘God has a Dream’:

Each of us has a unique part to play in this. We must make sure that we share God’s conviction that the world can be changed from within by His Holy Spirit. I pray that we will continue to walk forward in the faith that with God all things are possible.

Amen