June 5, 2011 1 Peter 4:12-14 John 17:1-11

“Glorifying God”
Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

“After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come;
glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people,
to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you,
the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
Since the beginning of Chapter 13 here in John’s Gospel, Jesus has been sharing with the disciples
what scholars call his Farewell Discourse. This discourse is meant to ensure that the disciples don’t
think that this is the end. Jesus wants them to know that even though he’ll be crucified, he will live on,
and even more, they’ll not be left alone. God will give them the Paraclete, the Comforter, the Holy
Spirit.
With chapter 17, Jesus begins what’s known as his high priestly prayer, a prayer that asks God to grant
Jesus’ hopes for his disciples. Essentially, Jesus acts here as a high priest, making intercession to God
on humanity’s behalf. While the image isn’t exact, the title highlights Jesus’ offering to God the
concerns of a community faced with remaining in the world after his departure. 1 “While shaped here
as his prayer, Jesus meant for his disciples – and arguably for us two millennia later – to overhear his
petitions. Hours from the crucifixion, Jesus focuses precisely on what matters most from his entire
ministry. This desire to communicate one last time what is at the center of one’s life and hopes is an
enduring human experience. A colleague in ministry tells the story of a young mother dying of cancer
in a hospital who finds purpose and energy from the opportunity to construct a videotaped message for
her preschool daughters, so that when they’re older they can listen to what she most hopes will guide
their lives. It’s very important to her to make sure her daughters receive her motherly care and love,
even though she won’t be alive to speak to them in person.”2
“What’s central among Jesus’ concerns? What would you say was the most important thing that Jesus
wanted his disciples, which includes us living 2000 years later, what would you say Jesus wants us to
remember? I believe that for Jesus, the culmination of his work is that we know God through his life
and ministry. Jesus’ final hopes aren’t a celebration of himself, but the recognition that his life and
ministry are windows into God’s love and saving purposes. So Jesus prays that people will come to
know God through him. ‘Knowing’ describes a powerful, active, confessional, and intimately
relational claim on our lives. Knowing God is an experience that draws believers into a new reality in
which the new order that will be shaped eternally by God’s vision for love and justice and service can
also be realized in relationships and communities now. Knowing God will be evident in our obedience

1
1. Adams, Richard Manly Jr. “John 17:1-11: Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the
Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary – Year A, Volume 2, David L. Bartlett and
Barbara Brown Taylor, general editors, Westminister John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 2010, p.
539.

2
2. Ramsay, Nancy J., “John 17:1-11: Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word:
Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary – Year A, Volume 2, David L. Bartlett and Barbara
Brown Taylor, general editors, Westminister John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 2010, p. 538.

1
to love, the singular commandment of this Gospel.”3 Love God. Love others. Love self.
This sounds familiar, I suspect, the same message you’ve heard over and over in church throughout
your life. “Love God and love one another because God is love” is preached everywhere by everyone.
Yet this message that God is love doesn’t always seem to be well understood.
I read a book this last week by Rev. Rob Bell entitled, Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and
the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.4 As you can perhaps tell from the title, the book is about
who he believes gets into heaven and who goes to hell. Bell makes the case in the book, that because
God is love, God doesn’t want anyone to go to hell, and if God doesn’t want anyone to go to hell how
can mere humans win that fight against God? Many, of course, argue that this is a universalist
theology and universalism has been denied by Christians from the beginning of the Christian church.
Only those who accept Jesus Christ will go to heaven. While Bell agrees in theory with this, he
broadens that kind of statement rather than making it exclusive. I found myself pretty much in
agreement with Bell’s argument because Bell’s argument is based upon the love of God.
I share this with you because I believe we Christians too often preach about a God of love, but we
don’t necessarily believe God is love– which is Jesus’ central message to us. If we’re to be one with
Christ, one with God, if we’re to love God, it’s important for us to know the God whom we’re seeking
to love.
This is how Bell puts it:
Bell writes, “This story Jesus tells about the man with two sons (what we call the story of the Prodigal
Son), has everything to do with our story (our lives). Millions of people in our world were told that
God so loved the world, that God sent his Son to save the world, and that if they accept and believe in
Jesus, then they’ll be able to have a relationship with God. [Just what Jesus is saying here in John’s
Gospel.]
Bell writes, “Beautiful.”
Then he goes on, “But there’s more. Millions have been taught that if they don’t believe, if they don’t
accept in the right way, that is, the way the person telling them the gospel does, and they were hit by a
car and died later that same day, God would have no choice but to punish them forever, in conscious
torment in hell. God would, in essence, become fundamentally a different being to them in that
moment of death, a different being to them forever. A loving heavenly father who will go to
extraordinary lengths to have a relationship with them would, in the blink of an eye, become a cruel,
mean, vicious tormenter who would ensure that they had no escape from an endless future of agony.
If there was an earthly father who was like that, we would call the authorities. If there was an actual
human dad who was that volatile, we would contact child protection services immediately.
If God can switch gears like that, switch entire modes of being that quickly, that raises a thousand
questions about whether a being like this could ever be trusted, let alone be good. Loving one

3
3. Ramsay, p. 538, 540.

4
4. Bell, Robert H. Jr., Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every
Person Who Ever Lived, HarperOne, New York, 2011.

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moment, vicious the next. Kind and compassionate, only to become cruel and relentless in the blink of
an eye. Does God become somebody totally different the moment you die? That kind of God,” Bell
suggests, “is simply devastating. Psychologically crushing. We can’t bear it. No one can.”
Bell then says, “And that is the secret deep in the heart of many people, especially Christians: they
don’t love God. They can’t, because the God they’ve been presented with and taught about can’t be
loved. That God is terrifying and traumatizing and unbearable.”
“Sometimes the reason people have a problem accepting ‘the gospel’ is that they sense that the God
lurking behind Jesus isn’t safe, loving, or good. It doesn’t make sense, it can’t be reconciled, and so
they say no. They don’t want anything to do with Jesus, because they don’t want anything to do with
God.”5
Don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying that we aren’t free to accept or reject God because we are. We
can say “no” to God if we so desire. But I believe that God doesn’t give up just because a person says
no today, because God loves us more than we can know or understand. “God is love, and love is a
relationship. This relationship is one of joy, and it can’t be contained. . . Jesus invites us into
[relationship with God], the one at the center of the universe. He insists that he’s one with God, that
we can be one with him, and that life is a generous abundant reality.”6
This is what gathering at the Lord’s Table is all about – remembering that we’re one in Christ Jesus,
remembering that God loves us so much that nothing we can do can separate us from the love of God.
Paul writes: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to
separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”7
We gather here, we’re invited here, to eat and drink of these symbols of how much God loves us – and
not just us but everyone. The more we love one another, the more God is glorified, the more God is
praised, the more God is honored. May we glorify God by loving one another.

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5. Bell, pp. 171-179.

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6. Bell, p. 178.

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7. Romans 8:38-39.