Christis


	Contents page \| Christis archive \| Submissions \| Advertising \| Links page \| Meet the team \| Cartoons \| Subscribe \| Christis timetable \| Search Christis

Whassa Bible Say on Unity Then?

Ed Everett checks it out

Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given me, that they may be one as we are.

John 17, v11 NKJV

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

John 17, vv20–21 NKJV

Jesus’ prayer for Christians to be united has sometimes struck me as being rather hollow. Not hollow on the sense of unfeeling, quite the contrary, it’s full of love and warmth, truly breathed out rather than just spoken, but rather hollow in the context of 1997, the present offering of a strife-ridden Church history. It’s not the first thing one thinks of on becoming a Christian perhaps, but the cracked moments of history (generally with the bad bits highlighted in the yellow marker of the sceptical historians) can cast long shadows over our trust in the historic Christian faith, and therefore our whole relationship with God. So much so, the words of Christ, supposed to shine light on our path, can actually seem burdensome. So often, too often, I have allowed a gradually suffocating cynicism to sever my interest in passages such as John 17.

However, sometimes I have been graced by the idea of asking just exactly what Jesus says in the Bible. If my heart is not closed to his teaching, the result is, almost surprisingly, a revelation! What is amazing about John 17 is the sense of unity and integration which Jesus’ prayer both talks about and exemplifies, between the Father and the Son, and, by glorious association, ourselves. It is positively abounding with qualities reciprocated among the Father, the Son, and, once more, ourselves. Jesus prays to the Father: Glorify your Son, that Your Son may glorify You, and then of the glory which the Father has given the Son Jesus says: I have given them (that’s us!). Jesus wants his joy to be ours and for us all to be sanctified by God’s Word which is truth. The whole prayer is about Christ sharing the gifts of God, joyfully and willingly with us, sinful human beings.

As God’s Son Jesus knows exactly what to pray for, not just for his disciples, but for all who subsequently follow him across all history, follow him, we cannot, for sure, know who these people have been and will be in the clouded past and the opaque future, but we can at least be sure that he does, and that history is part of His authority over all flesh. It is not a prayer, therefore, for Christians to be united in, say, the manner of a federal Europe. It is not about state boundaries or the descriptions we apply to certain denominations, however powerful or radical. When we glorify Christ, above our traditions, His word above our own, His Spirit above our self-conscious desires, then Christian unity becomes unavoidable. I don’t simply want to be rhetorical here, playing down the tragedy of actual, harmful, tragic schism and recurrent disunity in the beleaguered world-wide Church, but if Christ is enthroned in our hearts we have the only necessary ingredient available to us — the loving prayers of Christ on our behalf for the unity in Him of His people.

Ed Everett

Last modified: 25th November 2005