The Glorious Second Movement

 

 

“I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world” (John 17:14 – 18).

 

The second movement of John 17, verses 13 – 26, presents us with the tightly interwoven themes of our “mission to the world” and our “koinonia with one another in the Trinity.” To know the God of the Trinity is to know the God who so loves the world, to know the heartbeat of God is to know the sacrificial Giver to all mankind.

 

Jesus sends us into the world as the Father sent Him (v. 18), He prays that we may be one as the Father and Son are one so that the world may believe that the Father sent the Son (v. 21). Jesus prays for our perfection into one “so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me” (v. 23).

 

Our deep unity in the Trinity is associated with our witness to the world, and our witness to the world cannot and must not be separated from our koinonia with one another in the Holy Trinity. As long as we make excuses for our fragmentation we will fall short of creditable and Biblical witness to the world, with the people of the world suffering the consequences of our parochialism and schism. No evangelistic method can fill the chasm of deficient witness worn deep into the earth by the waters of sectarianism, distinctives, and “franchise Christianity.”

 

Witness, we might say, begins with Incarnation, and Incarnation is found in the unity of the Body of Christ within the Trinity. What people “see” draws them to Christ, we may argue all we want, we may lay out logical schematics, but until people “see” Jesus they cannot come to know Jesus, they cannot surrender their lives to Him, they cannot come home to the Father.

 

As Jesus prepares His disciples to be witnesses to the world, note His emphasis throughout John 13 – 17, it is the emphasis of our abiding koinonia and love together in the Trinity – it is the visible manifestation of our love and unity in Jesus Christ (John 13:35; 17:23). We cannot share with others what we do not have; having arguments is not the same as having Jesus and as Jesus having us.

 

The Great Commission of Matthew 28 flows from the Upper Room of John 13 – 17 and the Resurrection. Indeed, we find “Even as the Father sent me, so send I you” in both John 17 (the Upper Room) and John 20 (Resurrection Day).

 

O dear friends, any evangelistic method that does not begin and end with what Jesus says in John 13:35 and 17:23 falls short of our calling in Him and ill equips its messengers. Jesus equipped His disciples by bringing them into the Holy of Holies, shall we do less?

 

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34 – 35).

 

“That they may all be one; even as You, Father are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me” (John 17:21 – 23).

 

Our witness to the world is contingent on our loving one another as Jesus loves us and our Divine oneness in the Trinity. The two are one in that when we love one another as Jesus loves us we have Divine oneness, and that when we have Divine oneness we love as God loves – God is love (1 John 4).

 

As I hope we will see in forthcoming meditations, this calling is sacrificial, for just as Jesus set Himself apart for us, we are to set apart ourselves for others (John 17:17 – 18). Just as Jesus was priest and sacrifice, so are we to be both priest and sacrifice – for as the Father sent Jesus, Jesus sends us. This melding of priest and sacrifice is our state of being in Jesus Christ, this life on the altar is our abode, this continuing offering up of intercession is embedded in our every breath.

 

When others laugh at our forlorn hope, we see Jesus. When brethren call us impractical and foolish we love them. When the people of the world deride us we bear them on the altar of our hearts in prayer. When the kingdoms of the world mock us and our God, we remind ourselves of that Kingdom that will fill the entire earth, of Jesus putting all His enemies beneath His feet.

 

Every disciple of Jesus Christ, every soul which calls itself “Christian,” is called to live in the Holy of Holies of John Chapter 17, is called to live in the Temple of the Upper Room (John 13 – 17). This is our birthright, our blessing, our calling; our destiny from eternity past into eternity present and into eternity future.

 

We are to live in this Temple, to go out from this Temple, to come back into this Temple bringing others; to know the ascending and descending of the Son of Man. We are called to rescue our brethren from the pigpen as we have been rescued, to declare our Father’s Name to our brethren as Jesus has declared that Name to us, to be broken bread and poured out wine for others as the sacrament lives in and through us in Christ.

 

We are to touch the untouchable and love the unlovable, to be a shelter for the stranger, the alien, the homeless, the disenfranchised, the hopeless, the socially unclean; we are to look through and beneath and beyond the facades of wealth and power and fame and see souls who need Jesus, souls who are trapped in the prisons of this age with its lies and smoke and mirrors and empty promises.

 

In other words, we are to love as God loves.

 

Now then, how will we live today?