But now he is about to leave them. He knows that they must encounter great dangers, and will not have him to protect them. The form of his intercession for them is worthy of note. He does not ask that they should be taken out of the world. This would have seemed the way of tenderest love. But it is not the divine way to take us out of the battle. These friends of Jesus had been trained to be his witnesses, to represent him when he had gone away. Therefore they must stay in the world, whatever the dangers might be. The prayer was that they should be kept from the evil. There is but one evil. They were not to be kept from persecution, from earthly suffering and loss, from pain or sorrow: these are not the evils from which men's lives need to be guarded. The only real evil is sin. Our danger in trouble or adversity is not that we may suffer, but that we may sin. The pleading of Jesus was that his friends might not be hurt in their souls, in their spiritual life, by sin.
If enemies wrong or injure us, the peril is not that they may cause us to suffer injustice, but that in our suffering we may lose the love out of our heart, and grow angry, or become bitter. In time of sickness, trial, or bereavement, that which we should fear is not the illness or the sorrow, but that we shall not keep sweet, with the peace of God in our breast. The only thing that can do us real harm is sin. So the intercession on our behalf ever is, not that we may be kept from things that are hard, from experiences that are costly or painful, but that we may be kept pure, gentle, and submissive, with peace and joy in our heart.
There was a pleading also that the disciples might be led into complete consecration of spirit, and that they might be prepared to go out for their Master, to be to the world what he had been to them. This was not a prayer for a path of roses; rather it was for a cross, the utter devotion of their lives to God. Before the prayer closed, a final wish for his friends was expressed,--that when their work on earth was done, they might be received home; that where he should be they might be also, to behold his glory.
Surely there never has been on earth another gathering of such wondrously deep and sacred meaning as that farewell meeting in the upper room. There the friendship of Jesus and his chosen ones reached its holiest experience. His deep human love appears in his giving up the whole of this last evening to this tryst with his own. He knew what was before him after midnight,--the bitter agony of Gethsemane, the betrayal, the arrest, the trial, and then the terrible shame and suffering of tomorrow. But he planned so that there should be these quiet, uninterrupted hours alone with his friends, before the beginning of the experiences of his passion. He did it for his own sake; his heart hungered for communion with his friends; with desire he desired to eat the Passover, and enjoy these hours with them before he suffered. We may be sure, too, that he received from the holy fellowship comfort and strength, which helped him in passing through the bitter hours that followed. Then, he did it also for the sake of his disciples. He knew how their hearts would be broken with sorrow when he was taken from them, and he wished to comfort them and make them stronger for the way. The memory of those holy hours hung over them like a star in all the dark night of their sorrow, and was a benediction to them as long as they lived.