Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.
The Hour
John's whole Gospel has waited for this word: the hour — refused at Cana ('my hour has not yet come'), evaded in the temple, and now arrived on the night of betrayal. And the hour's content is GLORY: 'glorify your Son.' In John, the lifting up on the cross IS the glorification. Jesus walks into arrest praying not for escape but for the Father's glory through what is about to happen.
Eternal Life, Defined
Verse 3 is the Bible's own definition of its biggest term: 'this is eternal life, that they KNOW YOU, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.' Not endless duration first, but relationship — knowing — with the only true God AND the one he sent, named together in a single knowing. Quantity of life flows from this quality of acquaintance.
Prayed For
Jesus prays for the disciples he is leaving in the world: keep them, sanctify them in the truth ('your word is truth'), send them as the Father sent him. Then the lens widens to take in every reader: 'I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me THROUGH THEIR WORD' — the entire future church, including whoever is reading this study. The believer's deepest security is not the grip of their faith but the content of this prayer, and 'he always lives to make intercession for them' (Heb 7:25).
That They May Be One
The famous petition: 'that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you... so that the world may believe that you have sent me.' Unity AS the Trinity is one — and unity as APOLOGETIC: the world's believing is staked on it. Every tradition winces here, and should. The honest readings differ on what the oneness requires — visible institutional communion (Catholic/Orthodox emphasis) or real spiritual unity in truth and love that must become visible (Protestant emphasis) — but no reading escapes the verdict that Christian division preaches against the gospel. This site's editorial principle (every tradition in its own voice, no false winners) is one small attempt to take John 17 seriously.
The Prayer's Last Word
It ends in desire: 'Father, I DESIRE that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory.' The high priestly prayer's final ask is the beatific one — his people, with him, seeing. Everything between now and then is the middle of a prayer that is still being answered.
Go deeper: Logos — 'your word is truth' (Lexicon) · Ekklesia — the one assembly (Lexicon) · Sola Scriptura — word and truth (Disputed Questions)