¹¹ “I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are.”

Skin of an onion—composed of continuous peels, at different levels, all the way down to the core. This describes the challenge of peeling back the various layers of meaning in this Upper Room prayer of our Lord. A kaleidoscope of color and beauty in the mind of our Lord; intricately woven thoughts and intimations, a symphony of melodies and descants. Volumes could be written to decipher these twenty-six verses of Scripture, for we are catching a glimpse into the mind and conversation of God. At every level we learn His thoughts, which are above our thoughts (Isaiah 55:9). We must content ourselves with mere superficial reflections for now, awaiting the true glory of the mind of God revealed in the day we see Him face to face. As a friend of mine recently said, “Once we have been in the Lord’s presence, we will ask, ‘Why didn’t You bring me here sooner?’ ”

Jesus now makes it clear that although He would no longer be in the world, He was planning to leave His disciples in the world. What an irony; what a turnabout for the disciples. In any human scheme, that would seem to be unreasonable—the leader of the movement copping out before achieving the movement’s goals, just when the going gets tough. What gives?

This had been the plan all along, for Jesus’ leaving was the very thing that would make the goal achievable. He couldn’t stay with them as the un-sacrificed Lamb of God, the un-resurrected Messiah. That would have been failure for the mission. However, it is required that His followers remain behind as ambassadors to the world. And they needed to be “in the world” to do that. This was their mission.

Although the disciples in the Upper Room would not have appreciated the significance of this at the time, clearly their memory of this would have been ignited when the post-resurrected Master commanded them, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Alone among the gospel writers, John, 50 years later, faithfully and lovingly recorded this prayer, fresh in His mind as the day he heard it from the lips of Christ. And His memory as a disciple and his mission as an ambassador of Christ “in the world” remained fresh all those years.

Lord, thank You for leaving me here as an ambassador (2 Cor 5:20) to represent You in this world. Help me to be faithful in this mission.