The Helper and the Prayer
How is Jesus still present after he leaves?
Jesus tells his grieving friends that his leaving is a gain rather than a loss, because the Spirit he sends makes him present wherever his people are — and then he prays them into that new life, asking that they be kept, made holy, given joy, and made one.
This chapter reads the last half of Jesus's farewell conversation and the prayer that closes it, John 16 and John 17. It asks what John's strange name for the Holy Spirit — the Helper, one called alongside — actually promises, why sorrow is treated so honestly here, and what it means to overhear Jesus praying for people who did not yet exist. It ends with the hardest line in the prayer, 'that they may be one,' held with both grief and hope.
- 01
Explain what the word Helper means in John 16 and describe, from 16:7–15, what Jesus says the Spirit does.
- 02
Trace how John 16 handles sorrow — naming it, not curing it — and say what 16:33 promises and what it does not.
- 03
Describe the shape and main petitions of the prayer in John 17, and state fairly how different traditions hope for the unity of 17:21.
- 01
The Helper — John's name for the Holy Spirit and what he does
Jesus calls the Spirit the Helper, one called alongside, and says his own departure is what brings that Helper to make him present rather than absent.
- 02
"In the world you will have trouble" — sorrow turned to joy
Jesus does not argue his friends out of grief; he tells them their sorrow will be turned into joy, and offers peace inside trouble rather than in place of it.
- 03
John 17 — listening in on Jesus praying
John 17 lets you overhear Jesus praying on the night before his death, first for himself, then for his friends, and finally for everyone who would ever believe through them.
- 04
"That they may be one" — the prayer and the divided church
Jesus asks that his people be one as the Father and Son are one, so that the world may believe — a request the church has not yet answered, and one to hold with both grief and hope.