Amen, amen, I say to you,
whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.
Until now you have not asked anything in my name;
ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.
Jesus promised his disciples a joy that no one could take away from them. Today we see that the perfection of that joy required cooperation on the part of the disciples. It was not a thing they could attain on their own as people in our own day try so desperately to do. It was not an answer that could be found in the self-help section nor even in the depths of psychological research, much less in drugs or other forms of escape. Complete joy was to be found in the name of Jesus, specifically when, in this name, the disciples approached the Father.
On that day you will ask in my name,
and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you.
Asking the Father in the name of Jesus was something more than merely putting Jesus between themselves and the Father. If that is what it was they would still be at a distance from the Father, still knowing him only vaguely and in figures of speech. But to go before the Father in the name of Jesus spoke of a much more intimate reality where they could truly experience the presence and the love of the Father himself. It was to be the same love with which he loved the Son that the disciples received, because their prayers in the name of the Son caused him to recognize and to love in them what he first loved in Jesus.
For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me
and have come to believe that I came from God.
This experience of the Father's love for us is what will bring our joy to completion and perfection. It is not any specific things for which we ask in prayer, no matter how miraculously we may receive them, that can produce this fruit of joy in us. It is rather the result of experiencing in fullness the love for which we were created. The whole fallen world seems ordered to make us doubt that such love exists, or that, if it exists, we are worthy of it. Certainly our previous experiences of love in the world aside from this love have been partial and contingent, requiring us to perform perfectly and others to be in the right mood to result in even a facsimile of joy. But this love of the Father for us is not like any other love. It is the unshakable foundation of reality itself. And now we are privileged, through the name of Jesus, to enter in and receive this love as much as we could ever desire and then still more. This is the clear truth beyond figures of speech. This is the goal of creation and redemption. No wonder Jesus himself was eager to return to the Father. It must have been sorrowful to see him go, but in doing so he demonstrated the path that we ourselves may one day hope to follow. And if the joy we have in the Father now is so great, what awaits us then?
For king of all the earth is God;
sing hymns of praise.
God reigns over the nations,
God sits upon his holy throne.
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