As we prepared for the bishop's visit this past week, I couldn't help but think about Christ's words in this morning's gospel as if addressed directly to our twenty-two youth. For in these words from the seventeenth chapter of St. John's gospel, we hear part of Jesus' Farewell Address to his disciples, made in the context of the Last Supper, at which Jesus also washed his disciples' feet. He called them his friends that night; no longer were they merely the students at the feet of the master teacher; Jesus had stooped to their feet, thereby lifting them up; he came down to their level so that they might be raised to his.

Jesus' Farewell Address has become known as the High Priestly Prayer. It is a prayer addressed to the Father, interceding on behalf of his students and his friends who must now walk the road of faith in a new way. Jesus will no longer be "in the flesh" in the way the disciples have come to take for granted, but during this farewell dinner, Jesus tells his disciples that the Father will give them the Holy Spirit, so that they will not be left alone. In short, Jesus leaves his friends with words of comfort, sacraments of service, and gifts of divine presence. He also leaves them with a charge: to carry his word to the world, regardless of the cost.

What does this mean for our newly confirmed youth and adults in particular, and for all of us in general? What does Jesus call his followers to do for him today?

In the first part of this passage, Jesus prays: Father, protect them so that they may be one. While I was with them, I protected them, but now I am coming to you, to ask you to protect them. I pray these things so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves by being one as we are one.

The goal of protection is not shelter from reality, but joyful unity in fellowship. Jesus wants us to connect joyfully with one another just as he is joyfully connected to the Father. In our joyful unity, Jesus' own joy is "made complete" in us. For the youth who have been confirmed, as for each of us, Jesus calls us to a safe place, the church-a place protected by the Father so that we can learn how to become one body, but a place that is not cut off from the world.

Our youth began to learn how to become one in joyful unity through Head to the Heart. Whether progressing through the twenty-seven books of the New Testament or regressing into a game of Duck-Duck-Goose, they had opportunities to pray together, to study together, and to plan and carry out liturgies together (as they [will/are/did] this morning [at nine]). This search for joyful unity, under God's protection, will continue throughout their lives. Through faithful searching, they will make Jesus' joy complete.

We will all need to make Jesus' joy complete in ourselves if we are to be who Jesus has called us to be. For as he prayed to the Father: Protect them because I have given them your word, as a result of which the world has hated them. Therefore do not take them out of the world, but protect them from the evil one.

The sort of protection for which Jesus prays is not the over-protectiveness of a parent who tries to shield his or her child from every hurt or harm, any conflict or quarrel that life may bring, but who recognizes that it is precisely because we will encounter the evil one in hurt and harm, conflict and quarrel, that we need a degree of divine protection from this evil.

Jesus does not ask the Father to keep us from suffering; indeed, it is because Jesus has given us his word that we will be hated by the world, if indeed we share his word with others in the world. We are not called to share that word in any pugnacious way-we need not invite the world's hatred. But even when we are simply trying to live out the basics of our faith in every day life, we are going to find that it's not easy. We are going to be tempted. We are going to encounter people who will be indifferent to our faith, who might even hate us for how we try to live. In the midst of the tribulations of this world, we are to remain steadfast in our love, knowing that in our vulnerability the Father will protect us from the evil one.

As I've worked with our youth in Head to the Heart, in the Regional Youth Group, and in the Academy, I have seen time and again how difficult it is for young people to live the truth of the gospel when they want to be admired by their friends. Unfortunately, this is just as true for adults as it is for youth. Throughout life, it is all-too-often much easier to gain the admiration of the people around you by being mean than it is by being kind. And so, if we are to be who Jesus calls us to be in joyful unity, and if we are to share the good news as Jesus calls us to do, we must each make a conscious commitment to Christ.

In confirmation on Wednesday, the bishop asked our youth: "Do you renew your commitment to Jesus Christ?" and the youth answered "I do, and with God's grace I will follow him as my Savior and Lord." To those who gave this answer on Wednesday, and to all of us who have given it before them, I say: Make that promise a reality. Make that promise the truth.

Thinking back again to Wednesday, after the candidates renewed their commitment to Jesus Christ, something happened: the bishop laid his hands on each of their heads, and prayed "Strengthen, O Lord, your servant with your Holy Spirit; empower him for your service; and sustain him all the days of his life." Or else he prayed "Defend, O Lord, your servant with your heavenly grace, that she may continue yours for ever, and daily increase in your Holy Spirit more and more, until she comes to your everlasting kingdom." In each of these traditional confirmation prayers, the same requests that Jesus asks of the Father on behalf of his disciples the bishop makes on behalf of the confirmands: protect them and sanctify them.

Jesus prayed: Father, sanctify them in the truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world, and for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

It is not just because we are in the world that we need the Father's protection and sanctification. It is not just because Jesus has given us the Father's word that the world will hate and mock us, or simply remain indifferent. It is because Jesus himself has sent us into the world that we need the Father's protection and sanctification if we are to live into our identity as Christians.

To be confirmed in the faith means that you have been recognized as a full member of the church and that you have made a commitment to be strong in the faith, not a strength that fights or bullies but a strength that stands up to fighters and bullies, or (even more difficult) stands up to the temptation to become someone who relies on your own strength rather than on God's. To be confirmed means to be empowered for service, not to take but to give, to be a leader, not a tyrant.

It is easier to taunt others for their ignorance or weakness than it is to try to help others understand or succeed. It is easier to make a commitment to follow yourself as lord and to deny your need of a savior. But that is not the promise you made. Once you have been confirmed, you cannot take it back: you claimed the faith, and the faith claimed you. I pray, with Christ, that the Father will protect you in the world and sanctify you in the truth, so that in the power of the Holy Spirit you may make your promise a reality. You can live that promise into truth.