Keep Christ as He Keeps You
How do you protect what is most valuable to you? Your family and personal security are likely behind a locked door, maybe a security system. If you don’t lock your doors, then you probably live in a remote and secure location. We keep our money and investments behind a phalanx of security protections including physical safes and government rules and regulations. We want cyber-protection and fraud guarantees because we worry now about getting hacked more than anything.
Medieval security was different. They didn’t have banks and had to provide their own security.
A town may seek to have a wall, with a gate. That would generally be sufficient to protect it from a roving band of outlaws, especially in hard times.
Within the town, the royalty, be it an earl, a duke or a king would have a castle. Remember that in their time, such positions were not merely honorary. They were central to the economic health of the community both in negotiating trade outside the area and in providing protection. Lose them and everything was forfeited, so put them in a fortress. The castle may well have another wall, another gate, perhaps a moat with a drawbridge. That would be sufficient to protect from an organized army of sorts – a rival earl or duke, an opposing feudal lord.
And as a last resort, there would often be a place set apart either within the grounds of the castle or perhaps behind and/or above it. Such a place would be very hard to assault and designed to defend with even a few men. It was a place where things of greatest value could go; where the royal family could take refuge, and where the family treasure would be safest.
This was called “the keep” because it was the very best place to keep that which was most dear, most important, most critical to long-term survival.
And it is that idea of a Keep, of the protection and provision of that which is most important, most critical to long-term survival, which may give us sense of Jesus’ heart in today’s Gospel. Remember that John 17 is from the night of the last Supper. This is from the last of 5 chapters John devoted to all Jesus said and did the night before he died. We revisit that night on this 7th Sunday of Easter to remind us of the heart of Jesus, the heart of God, and his promise to his people as shared with these 11 disciples.
Jesus speaks of how they have kept the Lord’s Word. At first glance, we might take that as following God’s commandments, following God’s rules. That is part of it. But remember how John’s Gospel begins. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) Then a little later in verse 14, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)
When Jesus says, “They have kept your Word” he’s also saying that they have kept him. They’ve made mistakes. It is quite clear from all four Gospels, Acts and the epistles that they struggle at times. How often do we see them misunderstand, question, fail and even rebel against Jesus? How much more will they in the days ahead, the weeks the months and years ahead? But that is not the point.
For all their imperfection, they have managed to keep the Lord’s Word. That means they have taken Jesus into in their innermost self, their internal “keep” where they store what they hold most dear. They have walked with him, learned from him, witnessed him in all manner of situations. They have stuck with him. They have protected him, even and especially those times that they overstepped their bounds. Most of all, they have taken him into the very core of their being, heart, mind and soul.
They’ve been through his training program, their internship, and he has found among these 11 a common faithfulness.
At the heart of that faithfulness is their grasp that Jesus is one with the Father, so that he and the things he has taught them are as secure as they can humanly be inside those internal keeps.
When push comes to shove, when everything else has been stripped away, they will hold onto that. Despite their imperfections, this will be their witness despite the hardships, torture and death they will face. Their keeps will hold.
When Jesus asks his Father to protect the disciples, the Greek word is actually the same as the one used for keep above. It is a fair translation either way, but consider the Lord as keeping Jesus’ disciples.
That cannot mean physical safety, for they will all suffer physically and most of them will die violent and untimely deaths. It cannot mean they will be immune from the cares and struggles of this life – they will endure all we can imagine and probably more.
Yet Jesus asks his Father to keep them – to place that about them which is most important in his keep, to secure their souls and their ultimate future in God’s own heart.
This is the promise secured in Christ’s death and resurrection – and his signpost of his Ascension. That is where Jesus enacts what he said to the disciples earlier the night before he died, as John records in chapter 14. You remember. Jesus says, “I’m going to prepare a place for you. You know where I am going.” Thomas replies, “No we don’t, how can we know the way?” Jesus responds, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
You see the connection. Our hope, our future, our destiny is to be kept forever with Jesus, where Jesus is. We keep him in our hearts, he keeps us in his heart. The surety of that promise is what leads to the wisdom of having our hearts enlightened by the richness of his glory. As that promise is true, how must that shape every decision and choice we make.
Keep Him at the very core of your being. He will keep you at the very core of his being, forever.
AMEN