Intercession
by Maria Rudolph
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Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth (John 17:17).
Read John 17:12–19
Many prayers made by pastors before preaching a sermon begin with or entirely consist of these words Jesus prays: ‘Sanctify them [us] by the truth; your word is truth.’ This is part of Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John’s Gospel. Jesus intercedes for his followers and the coming church. Jesus intercedes for us.
The Holy Spirit also intercedes for us. Romans 8:26,27 teaches that ‘the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God’.
Intercession (prayer) begins and ends in God. God the Trinity is three in One. The Holy Spirit fully knows the will of God and intercedes for us in accordance with it. Jesus, who reminds us through his prayer in John 17 that ‘all he has is God’s, and all God has is his’ (John 17:10), also intercedes for us according to God’s will.
We are so blessed by this intercession! If God is on our side, who can be against us (Romans 8:31)? The answer is nothing, and nobody can stand between us or separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:39)! You never have to think that no-one is interceding and praying for you. God himself intercedes for you – the very Way, the Truth and the Life. We are led by Jesus to pray: sanctify us in your truth; your word is truth. We are sanctified, or, in other words, made holy, by God’s word – by reading it, hearing it, pondering it, internalising it, living it. Jesus himself is the Word-made-flesh who sanctifies us. We do well to cling to Jesus at all times because he has the words of eternal life.
Dearest Jesus, help me by your Holy Spirit to cling to you, the Way, the Truth and the Life, at all times. Amen.
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