Jesus Prays for His Friends Before He Prays for Himself in the Garden

Between the upper room and Gethsemane, Jesus stopped and prayed aloud. John records the prayer, and the largest part of it is about the disciples. He tells the Father that they were his, that he has given them the Father's words, that they have kept them. He asks for their protection, their unity, their joy, and their consecration. He says he is not praying for the world at this moment but for those the Father gave him.

It is worth setting this beside what Jesus knew. He had just told Peter that he would deny him. He knew that within hours the rest would scatter. And yet the prayer is not a complaint about their weakness. It speaks well of them. It describes them as people who have received his word and believed that the Father sent him. Jesus saw what they would become, not only what they were about to do.

The lesson from this episode is about how Jesus regards his own. He prays for them generously, in advance of their failure, and he describes them by their faith rather than their fear. If that is how he spoke of the eleven on that night, it is how he speaks of you. He is not waiting for you to prove yourself before he intercedes. He has already asked the Father to keep you, and he asked before you fell.