Jesus praying

Sermon by Father Jonathan E Moore - LINK HERE

7th Sunday of Easter 2026

The seventh Sunday of Easter, consecration in the truth. We've heard a part of the 17th chapter of Saint John's Gospel, the priestly prayer of our blessed Lord. Saint John locates this long prayer within his account of the Last Supper.

Jesus is praying for His disciples, all of them, present and future. Jesus is praying not just for Simon Peter and his companions, He's praying for you and me. Jesus prays that we may be true to the Father, that we may be united and that we may be consecrated in the truth.

Saint John's Gospel is very carefully put together. Nothing is there without a purpose and nothing is where it is without purpose either. John deliberately situated this prayer of Jesus, our high priest, in between two scenes in which we meet a very different high priest, Caiphas by name.

He tells how Caiphas railroaded the Sanhedrin into deciding that Jesus should die, it being his opinion better for one man to die, which John includes twice in his narrative, once before Jesus is arrested and again afterwards. There is no question of justice here, simply expediency. The priestly prayer of Jesus is followed by Saint John's passion narrative, where Jesus receives a mockery of a trial and, encouraged by Caiphas and his gang, even the Roman governor is railroaded by the Jerusalem mob into passing the death sentence on a man in whom he can find no fault.

Jesus lovingly prays for His followers. Caiphas manipulates and abuses his own people. There's a world of difference between the two, isn't there? Caiphas the high priest was a political appointment in the first place.

The Romans, doubtful of his loyalty, had deposed the high priest Annas in AD 15. They appointed Caiphas in his place. The change didn't really achieve much because many of the Jewish people continued to believe that Annas was the high priest, so Caiphas had to keep Annas on side all the time, which Saint John highlights by revealing that Jesus was taken as a prisoner first to be interrogated by Annas alone and only afterwards to Caiphas and the Sanhedrin, His condemnation already a done deal.

At the same time, however, Caiphas had to try and do the job the Romans had put him there to do. Poor Caiphas, in many ways a pitiable character, situated between a rock and a hard place. Having removed one high priest, the governor could just as easily sack another.

There's a story of the Russian tyrant Stalin warning Lenin's widow Krupskaya, who was protesting at his behaviour, be very careful, if necessary I can always find another Lenin's widow. John contrasts Jesus, the true high priest, with Caiphas, the politician, the phoney high priest. Caiphas is both manipulated and manipulative, a man whose ends justify whatever means are needed to achieve them.

His masters demand of him compliance and he in turn demands the same of those he leads. Sir Winston Churchill famously remarked, a lie can be halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on, and I rather suspect that with Caiphas the truth hadn't even got boots to put on. Jesus, the true high priest, cares for His followers, He wants them to know the truth, to live the truth, to be set free by the truth, to be sanctified in the truth.

What a world of difference between our Lord and Caiphas. John was the last of the apostles to die and may well have lived into the second century AD. He had plenty of time to see the consequences of living the truth and he knew just how bitter those consequences could be.

He recalled Jesus telling His followers that they would be hated just as He had been. A follower of Jesus can neither own the world nor be owned by it. A follower of Jesus can neither be a lover of the world or its beloved.

God is reality, God is all truth, the only truth in which we are ever truly sanctified. Faith in Jesus Christ frees us to live in relationship with the blessed Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God can neither deceive or be deceived.

God knows you and me better than we know our own selves. So our journey of faith will reveal to us unwelcome truths about our own selves and temptation is never far away either. In the Old Testament story of Cain and Abel, God warns the angry, jealous Cain, sin crouches like a lion at your door.

This is all part of the reality in which we need to be grounded. It is the surest defence against perhaps the greatest of all temptations, pride. Be grateful when you are made to feel small because in truth we all are.

Jesus asked the Father, consecrate them in the truth, Your word is truth. We need to recognise the falsehood of living as though we belonged to the world. None of us is resident here for very long.

The temptation to materialism, to the pursuit of success, wealth and celebrity will crouch at our door as long as we live. We need also to see that the worst lies we ever tell are the ones we tell ourselves. The prejudices, false judgements and self-justification to which we can fall prey.

As Easter tide draws to its close, can we pray especially that God's word will be a lamp for our feet, a light for our eyes and that knowing the truth about God and about our own selves, we will enjoy the glorious liberty of the children of God, sanctified in truth. Amen.