Good Friday

I was late to arrive at the realization, but today is good Friday. It's so easy to carry on with "business as usual," but few days merit the attention that I feel this day should, for the believer. Truly, it is a time to deeply reflect.

I spent some time in the gospels...reading about the last night that Jesus spent with his beloved disciples and stopped in John 17, where Jesus prays for them and for the followers to come. How I love this prayer.

...I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you.

Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name - the name you gave me- so that they may be one as we are one...

I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you would take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one...

sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.

May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me...

Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world...