Collect

Triune God, Jesus prayed that we might be one: help us transcend our differences and find our unity in Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever .Amen.

Eucharist Readings:

Acts 22:30; 23:6-11                      Psalm 16                       John 17:20-26

So far Jesus had concentrated on those whom he had taught, but then he switched to those who would believe through the disciples ‘testimony. He made no distinction between those who had heard him personally and those who heard him through others but for both it was a prayer unity. Again, the pattern for unity is the relationship between the Father and the Son. The cycle here is faith leading to unity which leads others to faith. Another aspect of the unity theme is glory.

Jesus said that he had given his disciples the glory which his Father had given him, but what does this mean? What was the glory of Jesus? For Jesus, the cross was his glory. Jesus did not speak of being crucified but instead that he was glorified. Therefore, a Christian’s glory is the cross he or she must bear and a honour to suffer for Jesus Christ. We must never think of our cross as our penalty but rather as our glory.

Jesus’s perfect obedience to the will of God was his glory. We find our glory, not in doing as we like, but in doing as God will. We find the real glory of life in doing God’s will, the greater the obedience, the greater the glory. Jesus’s glory also lay in the fact that, from his life, humanity recognized his special relationship with God. They saw that no one could live as he did unless he was uniquely near to God. As with Christ, it is our glory when people see in us the reflection of God.

The joy we have now is only a foretaste of the joy which is to come. It is Christ’s promise that if we share his glory and his sufferings on earth, we shall share his glory and his triumph when life on earth is ended. From this prayer Jesus was to go straight out to the betrayal, the trial of the Cross. He was not to speak to his disciples again. It is a wonderful and a precious thing to remember that before these terrible hours his last words were not of despair but of glory.

Therefor my dear friends, we do nothing on and through our own will, so many have tried but failed dismally. We look to Him the only wise God, whom we serve and whom we adore.

If we share Christs cross, we share his glory. “The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him (2 Timothy 11-12).  Here in this world, at best we see dimly in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12).

What a wonderful foretaste, what a wonderful joy we have as Christians, just to know what lies behind those promises of Jesus. We find Gods amazing grace in the unity of spirit, unity in our love for Jesus Christ.