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.”

He is gone, we are here. And now He asked His Father to, “keep them in Your name.” The gospel writer John uses common words and simple grammatical constructions to record Jesus’ teachings. However, the concepts conveyed in this Upper Room prayer are anything but simple-minded. What does it mean to, “keep them in Your name”?

To answer this we must first note that Jesus reminds His disciples (see John 7:33) through His prayer that His departure had as its destination the heavenly Father’s presence. Just as He had a purpose in entering the world, He had a purpose in leaving it. The word “keep” carries the connotation of protection, so Jesus is asking the Father to protect them while He is gone from being with them. That protection comes “in Your name,” which, as we have already seen, means that He is the God who will be there for them in whatever need they have. The writer of Proverbs states, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runs into it and is safe” (Pr 18:10).

First, they needed protection from abandoning all hope in the next few hours and in the next three days. The disciples were about to go through the unimaginable experience of seeing their Master, whom they loved and followed, being executed and buried, bringing to an end their hopes and dreams for the kingdom of God. Second, they would need protection from the hostility of the religious leaders that would now turn against them. Indeed, Christians through the ages have experienced horrific persecution for their identification with Christ. They (and we) also needed protection from the false teachings of the religious leaders, the trials and the temptations of earthly life.

How often would we not only ask, “What would Jesus do?” but also, “Why couldn’t Jesus be here to take care of this.” Wouldn’t the Christian walk go better if the physical Jesus were still here, and we could go to Him at any time to solve our problems, settle our doctrinal disputes and convince skeptics? But Jesus has left us here for a purpose, to carry on His mission as ambassadors to the world. We must never forget that we are citizens of another country, the Kingdom of God. We are on “foreign assignment,” as part of our King’s diplomatic corps, temporarily stationed on planet earth. And our heavenly Father is using all the resources at His disposal to protect us, until our mission is completed and He orders us home to heaven.

Lord, I take refuge in Your Name and Your power while I am “in the world.”