12 May 2016 - that the world may know

[ Today's Readings ]

I pray not only for these,
but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
so that they may all be one,
as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
that they also may be in us,
that the world may believe that you sent me.

Jesus, you pray to unite us. It's easy to miss just how important this is. Division and sin are interrelated in ways we don't fully appreciate. There is the threefold divide between God and man, man and his fellow man, and man and himself. Thus we see that you once walked in the garden together with man, but no longer. And we see that man and woman must now were clothes because they can no longer be as united to one another as they were. They risk using the other for their own ends. Even within ourselves we find division between who we want to be and who we actually are.

For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members (see Romans 7:22).

We can't risk being like the Pharisees and Sadducees who really should have more in common than not. Yet they are easily turned aside from their joint purpose and made to fight against one another instead. How often Christians appear this way before the world!

When he said this,
a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and Sadducees,
and the group became divided.
For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection
or angels or spirits,
while the Pharisees acknowledge all three.

There is more at stake for us than for them. 

that the world may know that you sent me,
and that you loved them even as you loved me.

This is what is at stake. This is what our unity with one another shows to the world. But it is not something we can create through clever political strategies. Rather it is given to us.

And I have given them the glory you gave me,
so that they may be one, as we are one,
I in them and you in me,
that they may be brought to perfection as one

Give us this glory, Jesus. Make known the name of the Father to us so that his love for us may be in us. Dwell in us, LORD, that we may know the Father's love. This union and presence is a gift. It is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit who makes us all one body.

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call (see Epheisians 4:4).

Come, O Holy Spirit. Unite us in the fire of your love.