Jesus prays for the Father’s protection.

John 17.11-12.

Part of the reason for Jesus’s John 17 prayer is the protection of his followers—who would now include us. The world, Jesus says in the next verses, hates ’em because they’re not of the world any more than he is. Jn 17.14 So they’re gonna need protection. Thus far Jesus had been personally protecting them, but he was returning to his Father; now it was on the Father to protect them. ’Cause thus far, Jesus hadn’t lost any of the people the Father gave him… well, except Judas Iscariot.

It’d be better to put all that in Jesus’s words:

John 17.11-19 KWL

11“I’m no longer in the world.

They’re in the world, and I come to you.¹

Holy Father, guard them in your¹ name which you¹ gave me

so they might be one like we are.

12When I’m with them,

I’m guarding them in your¹ name which you¹ gave me.

I’m guarding them

and none of them are being destroyed

—except the son of destruction,

so the scripture can be fulfilled.”

This prayer is not a rote prayer which we can just repeat, and pray as if it’s all our own words. But we can adapt parts of it and include ’em in our own prayers. We can repeat Jesus’s request that the Father guard us, and help us become one like he and the Son are. Jn 17.11

Protected in God’s name.

Jesus elsewhere teaches us to ask for things in his name, Jn 14.13, 16.24 but here he says he’s guarding his followers in his Father’s name—and that his Father gave him his name.

I’ve heard Christians give really convoluted explanations about what this means, and sometimes take entire sermons to do it. But it’s much, much simpler than that. Jesus is the Father’s son, and therefore has the Father’s name, same as we share the same family name as one or both of our parents. My dad’s last name is Leslie; so’s mine. Romans would go so far as to give their children the exact same name: Marcus Porcius Cato, whom we often call “Cato the Elder,” had two sons, both named Marcus Porcius Cato. The boys had different mothers, so one was Licinianus/“of Licinia” and the other Salonianus/“of Salonia,” to avoid confusion. (Cato Salonianus is the guy we nowadays call “Cato the Younger.”) But that’s how very important Romans considered a name.

And Jesus has his Father’s name, because Jesus is YHWH. He’s not a different God, a lesser God, a demigod; he’s the God, the One God. Same as his Father is; they’re both the One God; they’re persons of the trinity. They’re one in a far more profound way than Christians are meant to be unified, yet Jesus uses the oneness he has with his Father to describe just how close we Christians need to aspire to be.

Anyway, Jesus had been protecting his followers in the name of the LORD—again, his name—and he asks his Father to continue to do likewise. The LORD’s name has definitely been effective so far! And by “protection,” Jesus is not speaking of bodily harm; if that were true, 11 of his Twelve wouldn’t’ve wound up martyred. (Some have claimed John, who wrote this gospel, wasn’t martyred; but that’s only because he wasn’t killed. Getting imprisoned on an island the rest of your life is totally martyrdom.) Jesus is speaking of spiritual harm; he wants these kids to make it to the New Jerusalem. And they will.

He likewise wants us to make it to the New Jerusalem too. And if we abide in him, instead of quitting him, we likewise will. God’s got our back. So it’s entirely right of us to keep praying that he has our back. Stick with him.