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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!)
At my older niece’s graduation from the Moody School of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin, just more than one week ago, with everyone united in a celebratory spirit for graduation, one of the speakers spoke divisive words against such groups as men and conservatives and confederate war heroes. She finished her speech, but not without audience members during it blowing air-horns, booing, and telling her to sit down. We do not have to look far for examples of disunity and a lack of love. We find them in society at large, in our own schools or workplaces, and in our own homes. In sharp contrast to such examples of disunity and a lack of love is the description of the Father and the Son and those who believe in them that Jesus gives in today’s Gospel Reading, a description of perfect unity abounding in love. This morning we consider that Gospel Reading under the theme “Believers and the World”.
The Gospel Reading is the third part of what is called Jesus’s “High Priestly Prayer”, which He prayed in the Upper Room on the night when He was betrayed. In the first two parts of the prayer, Jesus ostensibly prays for Himself and for His disciples. In this third part, Jesus prays for those who will believe in Him through the disciples’ word, which includes us. Jesus prays that we might be united in a way similar to how He and the Father are united, a result of their dwelling in us, with a further benefit of that unity’s being that the otherwise unbelieving world might also come to believe.
Examples of disunity and a lack of love found among us are evidence that in some ways we who believe are no better than the unbelieving world. Our sinful nature still clings to us. After the beginning and humankind’s all‑too‑soon fall into sin, there have been all kinds of disunity and lack of love, first between people and God, and then between husbands and wives, their children, and so forth. There is little surprise, then, that, when it comes to us, we find disunity and a lack of love in those same relationships. In the case of our disunity and lack of love with God, we start off separated from Him in His righteousness, and our constant sinning drives us further apart. In cases of disunity and lack of love in our human relationships, from time to time one person may be right and another person wrong, but none of us is ever perfect. We all are in need of God’s dwelling in us and so perfecting us. On account of our disunity and lack of love and all of our other sins, we would be lost to death both here in time and for all eternity, apart from His enabling us to turn from our sin to Him.
In the Gospel Reading we heard Jesus say that the world does not know the Father but that He does know the Father, and we also heard Jesus say that He has made known and continues to make known the Father’s Name and so that His disciples, and essentially also those who believe in Him through their word, know that the Father has sent Jesus. Because Jesus Himself, in our case through the disciples’ word, continues to make known everything we need to know for salvation, He enables us to turn from our sin to Him. And, when we turn in sorrow from our sin and trust God to forgive us, then God does forgive us. God forgives our sinful nature and all our sin—our sins of disunity and a lack of love towards Him and one another, and all our other sins, whatever our sins might be, God forgives all our sin for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
There is so much Gospel gift in today’s Gospel Reading! As we heard, the Father gives His glory to Jesus according to His human nature, because the Father loved Jesus before the foundation of the world, and Jesus gives that glory to all those who believe in Him, who themselves have been given to Jesus by the Father, Who loves them as He loves the Son. That love for us is no fanciful disposition but itself a real gift, one that cost Jesus His life on the cross, where He died in our place the death that you and I otherwise would deserve. Masked behind hate and shame is God’s love and glory! For this purpose the Father sent Jesus: to live and die for us! Jesus did not pretend anything; the unity of His and the Father’s perfect relationship was behind all that Jesus said and did. Jesus’s resurrection proves the Father accepted His sacrifice on our behalf. Our believing that the Father sent Jesus entails our believing everything about Him and His work for us and our salvation, the Gospel and all its articles, including how He gives the benefits of His death for us to us in the Sacraments and their right use (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration X:31).
In the Gospel Reading we heard Jesus say that He has made known and continues to make known the Father’s Name, and for us Jesus does that through the word of His disciples turned apostles. The Holy Spirit is given and works through that Word in all its forms: read and preached to groups such as this, and applied to us individually when combined with water in Holy Baptism, with the touch of the pastor in the rite of Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine that are Christ’s Body and Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. Each forgives our sin in its own way, but especially in the Sacrament of the Altar do the Son and thereby also the Father and the Holy Spirit dwell in us and so are united with us, and so we also are united with one another. When Jesus describes such unity it can sound so abstract and unattainable, but especially here, in the Sacrament of the Altar, God Himself makes such unity happen concretely for us. Here also He forgives us of our disunity and lack of love and enables us to so forgive others.
When praying for His disciples earlier in His “High Priestly Prayer”, Jesus said explicitly that He was not praying for the world (John 17:9), but, in this the portion that we heard today, Jesus seems to be praying for the world at least indirectly. Jesus prays for perfect unity with Himself and the Father and those who believe in Him so that the world might believe and know that the Father sent Him and loved them even as the Father loved Jesus. So, we try to live out the perfect unity that God gives us, and so we try to reach out to the unbelieving world with the love that the Father has in Christ not only for us but also for the world. To that end, we do such things as conduct Vacation Bible School, not only for the children of our congregation but also for other family members and friends and people whom we have not yet met who live in the neighborhood and communities around us. Put up some V‑B‑S posters and, if you are able, deliver some V‑B‑S flyers. Some in the world will remain unbelieving, but we do not let that stop us from reaching out to them with God’s love! We have until Jesus’s desire for us to be with Him where He is and to see the glory that the Father has given Him comes to its greatest and fullest realization.
This morning we have considered the Gospel Reading under the theme “Believers and the World”. By God’s grace for the sake of Jesus Christ, God unites us forgiven‑sinners with Him and uses that unity to show the world His love for them. Instead of examples of disunity and a lack of love, such as at my niece’s graduation ceremony, we have a perfect example of unity and a superabundance of love. We can imagine the closest union on earth and the greatest amount of human love, and we know that something far greater with God is ours already now and for all eternity.
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 + + +