Most of you won’t be surprised when I tell you that I’m going to begin with a couple of questions. You might, however, be surprised or even startled by the questions. Don’t try to immediately answer them. I’ll give you a moment to sit with them. Just pay attention and see what they bring up in you; feelings, thoughts, memories, fears, hopes, other questions. You ready?

If you were on your deathbed, if you were dying and you knew you were dying, what would be your final prayer? What’s the last thing you want those you will leave to hear from you?

Would you ask God to spare you or maybe even bargain with God? Would you express your gratitudes and thanksgivings? Would you focus on the past or look to the future? Would your prayer be for yourself or for others? Would your last words be a review of your life? Would you name your successes, accomplishments, regrets, disappointments, hurts? Would you speak about things done and left undone? Would you ask for forgiveness? Offer forgiveness? Would you give your loved ones some final advice or instructions? Would you speak your best hopes and desires for them? Would you say, “I love you”?

There are a thousand different things running through my head and heart as I think about my ending. Maybe there are for you too. I feel the need to get very clear about what matters most to me, don’t you?

I’m not trying to be morbid. I’m inviting us into the context of today’s gospel (John 17:20-26).

We are hearing Jesus’ deathbed prayer. It’s the night of the last supper. Jesus is about to die and he knows it. He knows that he will soon leave his disciples. “That they may all be one,” is his dying prayer. His words are spoken to God but they are for us.

After Jesus speaks these last words he will go to a garden in the Kidron valley where he will be arrested. You know what happens after that.

Here’s what strikes me about Jesus’ prayer. He doesn’t review his life or second-guess himself. He doesn’t evaluate what he did, how well he did it, or what he didn’t get done. He doesn’t negotiate his ending with God. He doesn’t list his thanksgivings. He doesn’t give final instructions or advice to his disciples. He doesn’t pray for himself and what is about to happen. 

Instead, Jesus prays for us. He prays us into our future. He bears his heart and expresses his deepest longing and desire; that we “may become completely one.”

I don’t know of a more timely and relevant prayer for our lives, country, and world today than Jesus’ prayer for oneness. But here’s what I’m wondering. Maybe we can never be one with each other until we are each one within ourselves first.

Maybe the fragmentation and division we experience in our relationships, Uvalde, and America are an expression of how divided and fragmented we are within ourselves. Maybe Jesus is praying that each of us would become wholehearted and one within ourselves. 

I’m not talking about individualism, isolationism, or a me-first attitude. Those are not the way, the truth, or the life of Jesus. I’m talking about being one as God is one. I’m talking about mirroring the divine life. When we are one within ourselves then we really do have something to offer each other and the world.

What if being one within ourselves means having “a heart free of possessiveness, a heart capable of mourning, a heart that thirsts for what is right, a merciful heart, a loving heart, an undivided heart”? (Forest, The Ladder of Beatitudes, 89) Isn’t that the heart we see in Jesus throughout the gospel?

I wonder what that would look like in your life today. Where and in what ways is your life divided and fragmented? How might you practice or move closer to being one within yourself? What would that take?

With his deathbed prayer Jesus is not abandoning us, he is entrusting us to a reality larger than and beyond himself. He is entrusting us to life and life abundant. He is entrusting us to a joy that is complete. 

I can give that prayer an emphatic amen, can’t you? That’s what I want for you, others in my life, and myself. That’s what I want for Uvalde and our country. Don’t you want that too? 

I’m not suggesting your and my deathbed prayer should be the same as Jesus’ deathbed prayer. We are followers of Jesus, not copycats for Jesus. We each embrace and express his life in and through the uniqueness of our own lives not only in what we do but also in what we pray. 

Jesus’ deathbed prayer wasn’t something new that came to him at the last supper. His prayer expresses and describes how he lived his whole life. It was always at the heart of everything he did, taught, and preached. The reason Jesus could pray the words we hear in today’s gospel is because he was one within himself. His deathbed prayer came from having lived a deathbed life.

So let me qualify my original questions just a bit. If you were one within yourself and you knew you were dying, what would your deathbed prayer be? If you were one within yourself and on your deathbed, what’s the last thing you want those you will leave to hear from you?

My guess is that in whatever ways you might describe or express it you want the largest, best, and most complete life possible for those you will leave behind. So do I. My guess is that you want for them every blessing and life abundant. Me too. 

If we know that now, why not pray it now? Why not tell them today? Better yet, why wait until it’s time for a deathbed prayer when we can begin living a deathbed life today? 

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Image Credit: Photo by Aleksei / Алексей Simonenko / Симоненко on Unsplash.