This past week we had a wonderful Vacation Bible School, created and led by Christopher and Tiana Maslanka. The kids followed an undersea exploration that also probed the depths of The Lord’s Prayer, verse by verse. I loved it. Our oceans are so important and they are under a lot of stress. It was great to see the kids learn about that, and the Lord’s Prayer is central to our faith so it was great to see them learn more about that.

It reminded me of another undersea voyager.

A little over 8 years ago, the British National Oceanography Centre launched a new, state of the art, unmanned submarine designed to gather vital data from the deepest polar waters. It was and is very high tech and cost about $270 million, which was a lot of money 8 years ago.

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John devotes 5 chapters to all Jesus said and did at the Last Supper, from washing his disciples’ feet to lots of teaching and instruction, closing with what we call his “High Priestly Prayer.” Today’s Gospel is the very end of that prayer. After this Jesus will cross the Kidron Valley to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he will be arrested.

He closes by praying fervently that his disciples would be One. He says it three times, not to drive the point home with God, but to drive it home to them. He frames this desire in the most profound terms, that they should be One as he and the Father are One. And he says he is praying this not just for those gathered with him that night, but also on behalf of those who will believe in him through their testimony.

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We should start this morning by noting where we are in John’s Gospel, at the beginning of chapter 5. As many of you will have surmised by now, this comes right after chapter 4, in which only two things happen. Just preceding these events, John recounts a healing in Capernaum, which is up on the NW shore of the Sea of Galilee. Just before that is Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well in which he talks about giving “living water.”

Jesus is getting around! Samaria is between Galilee to the north and Jerusalem to the south, and it’s about 100 miles from Jerusalem to Capernaum across hilly terrain. Clearly John isn’t telling us everything. But, as he writes at the end of chapter 20, “…these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

Remember that is why we are here; “life in his name.”

This encounter combines elements of those prior two: living water and healing.

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