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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
In our society, there are a number of things that may divide us: where we come from, where we live now, loyalty to a particular university or sports team, and the like. In the Church, where such matters are more trivial, we should be united, especially in teaching and practice, but also in heart, mind, and will. So, Jesus, in this year’s appointed Gospel Reading for the Seventh Sunday of Easter, prays His Father to keep His followers in His Name so that they may be one, even as the Father and the Son are one. This morning we reflect on today’s Gospel Reading under the theme, “That we may be one”.
In the Church Year, today we are between our Lord’s Ascension, 40 days after Easter, and His sending of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, 50 days after Easter. Our Lord’s Ascension, which we observed this past Thursday evening, in a sense enthroned Him and also our human nature at the right hand of the Father, where our Lord not only rules all things for the benefit of the Church but also intercedes for us. In today’s Gospel Reading, we are back further in history, on the night when Jesus was betrayed, near the end of His time in the Upper Room, when Jesus is said to intensify all of His preceding teaching (Lenski, ad loc 17:1, 1114-1115) in what Lutheran confessor David Chytraeus was first to call Jesus’s “High Priestly Prayer”. The Prayer is variously subdivided and could be the basis for any number of sermons, but this morning we focus on the motif that is said to shape the whole prayer (Ridderbos, ad loc Jn 17:11-19, 553), Jesus’s praying for the purpose and result “That we may be one”, even as God is one.
Now, when we think about how the three Blessed Persons of the Holy Trinity—God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—are united in the one Divine Substance that they all share, our being one as They are one seems impossible! Yes, we all share a common human nature, but that in and of itself does not give us the same unity that the one Divine Substance gives the three Persons of the Trinity. And, we come from different places and times, and we have different backgrounds and experiences, even within The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. As we here at Pilgrim continue preparing to move into our new Parish Hall we seem increasingly divided and less united. The structural processes that are in place to help us avoid or at least work through potential causes of division seem not to be working, perhaps at least in part because some seem to be going around them. Despite repeated calls to do everything decently and in good order (1 Corinthians 14:40), some, as at the time of the judges in the Old Testament, appear to be doing what seems right in their own eyes (Judges 17:6; 21:25). Brothers and sisters in Christ, this must not be so!
We hear Jesus pray the Father “That we may be one”, and, in so doing, we hear the Holy Spirit call all of us to repent not only of our disunity but also of all our sin, whatever our sin might be. To be sure, those of us whom the Father has given to the Son out of the world cannot come to Him, know Him, or believe in Him on our own. Nor, having received the words that the Father gave the Son, can we apart from the Holy Spirit keep that teaching or remain in His Name. Truly the Father has given Jesus authority over all flesh, and our sinful nature, our sins of division and disunity, and all our sins merit judgment of eternal torment in hell, if not for the Holy Spirit’s leading us to turn in sorrow from them, to trust God to forgive them, and to want to do better than to keep doing them. When we so repent, then God forgives us. God forgives our sinful nature, our sins of division and disunity, and all our sins, for Jesus’s sake.
For, Jesus went out from praying His “High Priestly Prayer” and did exactly what He said in the Prayer that He had done: accomplish (or “finish” [John 19:30]) all the work that the Father had given Him to do (confer John 4:34), when the Father showed His love for the world by giving His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). God’s love and compassion exudes not only in the words of Jesus’s prayer but also in the things Jesus did: dying on the cross for your sins and mine and rising from the grave to show the Father accepted Jesus’s sacrifice on our behalf. Veiling His divine glory in His human nature, Jesus suffered an ignominious death for us, as God has done everything that needs to be done for our salvation, from from eternity giving us to be saved to preserving us in the faith to the end. And so, as we know God the Father to be the only true God through Jesus Christ Whom He has sent, as we know that everything the Father gave Jesus is from the Father, as we know in truth that Jesus came from the Father, and as we each individually believe not only that the Father sent Jesus as His authoritative representative but also that Jesus died for us, God gives eternal life to us each individually by forgiving us our sins.
And, we note well from today’s Gospel Reading how central God’s Word is to His revealing us His Name, His essential nature, with which we have a personal relationship and by which we enter into His love for us and are united in relationship to one another. In Holy Baptism, that one Name of the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—brings us into God’s Family of the Church. In individual Holy Absolution, that one Name of the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—returns us, in a sense, to our baptismal state. And, in the Sacrament of the Altar, the existing unity of the one Name is especially manifested and strengthened as we eat Christ’s body given for us and drink Christ’s blood shed for us, for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. We who are many are one, as we partake of the one bread and one cup (1 Corinthians 10:17).
In that one fellowship of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we are safe from that which threatens us in the world (Ridderbos, ad loc Jn 17:11-19, 553). As, we live in the world but are not of the world, where, as we heard in the Epistle Reading (1 Peter 4:12-19; 5:6-11), our adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. From him, God keeps us, “That we may be one”. The apostles in today’s First Reading (Acts 1:12-26) are a good example for us, devoting themselves to prayer and being of one accord, one mind—almost as in music different notes harmonize in pitch and tone, so the Holy Spirit as a concert master blends together the instruments of our different lives as members of Christ’s Church (ESL #3661). We are going for an organic unity, not for uniformity; even in the one Holy Trinity there is still a plurality of the three Blessed Persons! United in teaching and practice, we may have different ideas and opinions about some otherwise‑indifferent aspects of our life together, but we express those different ideas and opinions in proper ways, and we let collective decisions be made through proper channels, as necessary submitting ourselves to the majority of those making the decisions. And, as we fail in this regard and others, with repentance and faith, we live together each day in the forgiveness of sins that we receive from God and extend to one another.
Jesus not only prayed “That we may be one”, but He also died in order to gather into one the children of God scattered abroad (John 11:52). Those who do not receive Him are distinct from those who do, who gather as one flock around the One Shepherd (John 10:16). Although here as the Church, under the cross, some differences (such as those between rich and poor) remain and are transcended, other differences (such as those between men and women) acquire their “final seriousness”, and still other differences (such as those between the spiritually weak and strong) are respectfully considered (Stauffer, TDNT 2:440-441), nevertheless we are one in heart and mind and will. As we sang in the Introit (Psalm 100:1-5; antiphon: Psalm 101:1), together as His people, the sheep of His pasture, we give thanks to Him and bless His Name, for He is good, His steadfast love endures forever, His faithfulness to all generations.
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +