My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.
If I had been there with Jesus when he prayed this prayer before his disciples, I think I would have had mixed feelings at this point. The idea of being taken “out of the world” sounds rather intriguing. There are days when the idea sounds downright inviting! If you are old enough you might remember the tag line, “Take me away, Calgon!” from the 1970s. The bath powder was so delightful that it would take you away from all your problems. Out of this world, in a manner of speaking.
Staying in the world has its upside, too. Yet it can be tough. Being cast out of your social network, mentally bullied, intimidated, and physically beaten is no fun. All these things happened to the disciples after Jesus left. Yet even though he was gone, he did not leave them unprotected. Jesus prayed that God would “protect them from the evil one.”
What does that mean? What can the “evil one” do that is so bad? Why do we need protection?
Judas (remember him?) was in the grip of the evil one even as Jesus was praying for his disciples. Judas was filled with a sense of mission, a twisted form of righteousness that had been growing in his mind. Maybe he thought he would force Jesus to drop the nice guy mask and stand up to the Romans. Perhaps he fantasized that turning Jesus in to the Jewish authorities would trigger some other sort of scenario that had a good outcome. Or maybe he was just greedy for a fast buck, a quick thirty pieces of silver.
Whatever thoughts Satan had put in his mind, they were false thoughts. Matthew 27:3 records that when it was all over Judas was “seized with remorse.” The bubble had burst, the golden fantasy that Satan had spun in the mind of Judas turned to dust in an instant. The pain of what he had done drove him to hang himself.
That is why we need protection.
Food for Thought: What do you need protection from?
More than once Jesus either prayed for our protection from the evil one, or taught us to pray for that protection (The Lord’s prayer). The evil one is real and we need real protection. Our battle is not against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6: 10 – 18). Thus, taking Jesus at His word, I need protection from the evil one. My enemies are sin (self), death and Satan. I need help in all these areas. I need His grace and mercy and thankfully that is available through the cross and at least one way it is accessed is through prayer (Hebrews 4: 14 – 16).
Thank you Rich! Well said! We can forget that evil is real because like all things spiritual we do not “see” them as a physical entity. Yet we do not “see” our thoughts or those of others, either. We only see representations of those thoughts. In the same way we see representations of God’s handiwork and Satan’s handiwork in this life.