Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: John 16-18
Key Verse
John 17:17 — “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”
Devotional Thought
The upper room has emptied, and Jesus leads His disciples across the brook Cedron into a garden where He has often prayed. He knows Judas knows the place. He knows what comes. Yet when the band of men arrives with lanterns and torches and weapons, it is Jesus who steps forward and asks, “Whom seek ye?” When He answers, “I am he,” the soldiers go backward and fall to the ground—the majesty of the Word made flesh flashing through for one startling moment before He lets them bind Him. Peter, ever zealous, swings a sword and lops off Malchus’s ear, but Christ’s kingdom advances not by the blade. “The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” He asks. And so He is led away—first to Annas, then to Caiaphas, then to Pilate—while in a courtyard nearby, warming himself at a coal fire, Peter denies Him three times, and the cock crows.
Between the garden and the judgment hall, John gives us the longest recorded prayer of Jesus, the prayer we call His high-priestly intercession. He prays for Himself, that the Father would glorify Him; for His disciples, that they would be kept from the evil one and sanctified in truth; and for all who would believe through their word—which includes us, this morning, reading these verses two thousand years later. “Neither pray I for these alone,” He says, “but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.” Before He ever stands before Pilate, He has already stood before the Father on our behalf. Before He is condemned, He has already asked that we might be with Him where He is, beholding His glory.
The timing of this reading, on the second-to-last day of the year, is striking. These chapters are the eve of the cross—the last quiet hours before the passion begins. As one year closes and another waits at the door, we find ourselves in the same posture as those disciples: unsure of what comes next, prone to fight when we should trust, prone to warm ourselves at the world’s fire when we should be watching with our Lord. Peter’s failure is not the end of Peter’s story, and the sorrow of Good Friday is not the end of the story at all. “Ye shall weep and lament,” Jesus says, “but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.” A woman in travail forgets her anguish for joy that a child is born.
That promise reaches all the way into our ordinary Decembers. The year behind us may hold grief, failure, unanswered questions—even denials of our own. The year ahead is unknown. But the One who prayed for us before the foundation of the world is the same One who said, “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” He did not pray that we would be taken out of the world, but kept in it, sanctified by truth, made one in Him. We enter the new year not with resolutions of our own strength, but under an intercession that never ceases. The cock crowed, yes—but so did the promise: “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”
Reflection
- Jesus prayed for you specifically in John 17—”them also which shall believe on me through their word.” How does knowing you were on His heart in that garden hour change the way you face the uncertainties of the coming year?
- Peter warmed himself at the enemy’s fire and denied his Lord three times. Where in your own life have you been standing too close to the world’s coals, and what would it look like to step toward Christ instead?
Prayer
Father, we thank You for Your Son, who in the garden did not flee but stepped forward, who drank the cup You gave Him and would not let His servants fight. We thank You that before He was bound, He prayed for us—for our keeping, our sanctification, our unity, and our joy. Lord, we confess the ways we have warmed ourselves at fires that do not belong to You, and denied You by word or by silence. As this year ends, turn our sorrow into joy and our fear into trust. Keep us in Your name, sanctify us in Your truth, and let us behold His glory. In Jesus’ name, Amen.