The Love that Unites Us: A Meditation on John 17

Neither pray I for these alone, 

but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, 

that they also may be one in us:

 that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; 

that they may be one, even as we are one:

I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; 

and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, 

and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

Unity is at the same time one of the most beautiful and most frightening concepts given to Christ's people, and His Church meditates on the Words of His great priestly prayer in John 17 with a certain amount of trepidation.  Jesus does not offer this great prayer lightly before His Passion, and neither should we take His Words lightly as we read them in our time and place.  This plea for love and unity among His disciples He specifically extends to all who will hear and believe in Him through His disciples' testimony, and so that means that His prayer is for us directly to love one another and be united in Him.

If one hears Christ's plea for love and unity with fear, that is to be expected:  human beings do love and unity really badly, and we have millennia of history to document our failures.  At the national level, countries appeal to their citizens for unity and love to amass political power and manipulate the people toward their ends.  How many nation's leaders throughout history have charismatically lead their people toward great atrocities, as they invaded, looted, and massacred their way across the countryside?  If distant history is too easily forgotten, the horrors of 20th century Atheistic Communism and Fascism should be fresh in our collective memories, their mass genocidal graves and battlefields still marking the deaths of tens of millions of people.  Today, nations do the same things, as various tribal factions throughout Africa unite to slaughter their neighbor tribes, or ISIS unites Muslims to slaughter and subjugate all others across the globe.  Americans are so leery of political unity and the fecklessness of populist affections, that we built into our Constitutional Republic very intentional separations of powers so that unity was always maintained in the plurality of checks and balances.  Humanity's works of political love and unity are far too often works of horror and terror, and rightly give us dread; especially as our own nation's election cycle seems to be generating presumptive presidential candidates whose lust for power approaches megalomaniacal sociopathy and demonstrable scorn for the rule of law, even as their political parties call for love and unity within their ranks.  We have every right to shudder when we hear politicians call for love and unity, because we know what inspires the hearts of politicians in every age.

How do we know their hearts?  Because they are our own.  Our fallen sinful hearts butcher love and unity in every institution we build, from churches to businesses, fraternities to universities, and even in our own families.  We build unity for the sake of power, that we might use such power for our own sordid interests.  We use love to motivate people toward our ends, or bend them to our will.  Many of our churches have become bureaucratic nightmares where their headquarters are filled with seekers of power and manipulators of popular affections, living sumptuously and presumptuously off the tithes and offerings of the people they fleece.  University administrators across the land reap financial harvests by the millions, while they turn their professors into the working poor, and their students into lifetime debtors.  Even families abuse their power to coerce and harm the people closest to them, creating divisions and abuses which scar generation after generation.  The well documented sociological trend of the last 40 years by younger generations to avoid membership in various organizations and institutions, soured on the abuses of government and academia and even family, are well rooted in our collective failure to love and unite.  Our political structures in every sphere have become grotesque, and even our families leave the wreckage of broken souls across our community landscapes.  We are a fallen people, and when we attempt in our various ways to unite in new efforts to build new Towers of Babel, we find that we build monstrosities which reflect the fallen image within us.  We are right to be trepidatious of human calls to love and unity, because we know what dark and evil hearts will do with such things.

This is where we must set ourselves aside, and read Jesus' Words as He gives them, rather than how we abuse them.  When Jesus prays for love and unity, He is asking the Father to give to His people the love and unity found within the Trinity-- a love and unity which never abuses, never coerces, and never deceives.  The love and unity which Jesus prayers for is to draw all His people of every time and place, into the fellowship of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  It is a unity and love which are reflected through His indwelling presence in every believing heart, bringing forth faith and repentance through the power of His Word.  That same Word of Law and Gospel which He used to bring all things into being, to call and gather His people through the ages preceding His Incarnation, to call and transform His disciples into Apostles of His Kingdom of grace, is the same Word He sends to call and gather and transform every soul who will hear and trust in Him until the end of the world.  Jesus as the Word Made Flesh comes to His people through His Word preached and believed, so that He may dwell in us and we in Him, and all of us together in the fellowship of the Most Holy Trinity.  Indwelt by Jesus and indwelling with Jesus, His people are transformed so that they might reflect His love and unity with the Father and the Spirit to everyone around them.  These marks of unity and love flowing forth from the Holy Trinity through His people will be signs of the truth of Jesus and His Word, bearing witness to the veracity of the Gospel before the whole world.  These marks are His works accomplished by His Word in His people, and reflect Him-- not the works of His people reflecting themselves.

We ought not read Jesus' Words of love and unity from our sinful perspective, expecting Him to misuse such things like our fallen politicians, academics, leaders, and even families have far too often done.  Jesus is neither a politician nor a bureaucrat.  He is not an abuser of power for His own glory, but rather a sacrificial Savior who though King of all Creation, comes in humility to seek and to heal and to save.  Though we are rightly nauseated by bureaucratic politics in the church and by churchmen who play the bureaucratic politician, Jesus is not a pope or bishop or president or council or blue ribbon committee.  Jesus is the very Word of God's love and mercy and truth, sent to save a dying, lost, and ever darkening world.  Hear Him as He comes to you, speaking His Words of life and healing into your wounded and tortured soul.  He does not come to manipulate you, to take your money, to endorse His campaign, or to sell His books.  He comes only to seek and to save you, and to give you the forgiveness of your sins which He won for you upon His Cross, and which He offers freely to you by His grace through faith in Him.

Have you been wounded, abused, and broken by the human institutions of this fallen world?  Have you lost hope in politicians, teachers, activists, and bureaucrats of every stripe and vestment?  Jesus calls to you, dear friend, with His Words of healing, restoration, forgiveness, and hope.  While we can count on fallen people to fail us at every turn, far more can we depend on our saving and loving God in whom there is no darkness, no evil, no malice, no corruption, and no manipulation, to be everything He has shown us He is through His Word given through the ages.  He is the essence and ground and fountain of all love and unity, and He calls us to turn from our dark and deadly ways that we might embrace Him in His marvelous light.  There in His fellowship we will find all those who have likewise responded in faith and repentance to His gracious Gospel call, and there we are marked not by the marquees fallen human associations, but by His indwelling and eternal Word.  Hear Him, and with eyes newly sighted find the fellowship you were created to enjoy between God and your neighbor forever-- a fellowship of true unity and true love whose blessedness and communion never end.  Amen.