Courageous, Contagious Love. John 17: 20 26; John 19: 25b 27. This is called the high priestly prayer of Jesus for his disciples

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1 Courageous, Contagious Love John 17: 20 26; John 19: 25b 27 This is a cool passage of scripture because we re in it! This is called the high priestly prayer of Jesus for his disciples And we are there: I ask this on behalf of these but also On behalf of those who will believe in me through their word. We are those very people Jesus is talking about because we are the ones who believe through the words of those disciples. So when we say in our assurance of pardon: Jesus died for us, Rose for us, reigns in power for us and PRAYS FOR US, This is one of those prayers! So the next question is: What is Jesus asking on our behalf? In verse 17 Jesus asks God to: sanctify them in truth, your word is truth The word in Greek is hagios and it means to consecrate, To sanctify, to make holy or to make perfect. That sounds like a high calling to me and one that I m not sure I can do. I look at the Saints in the faith people like Mother Theresa or Dietrich Bonheoffer who in my opinion are holy people

2 and then I look back at myself and I wonder. And then I find myself trying to prove my holiness: how many salvation army meals can I serve; how many mission trips can I lead; how many hospital calls can I squeeze in before end of day; how many sermons, prayers, meditations can I write. And then I realize I have gotten caught up in my own works righteousness and not glorifying God, and there s nothing hagios or holy about that! And that realization sends me back to the text which says We can t study up on the holiness of God. We can t take a class to learn about it. Rather it is something that we experience In the unity and the love of the Father and the Son. We live with a mechanical, causal understanding of the world. We want to find the cause behind the Boston Marathon bomber. And yet the reality is that we learn hate or love not from a book But in a community that reflects that love or hate. We learn love or hate by feeling it in others, Experiencing and sharing it in ourselves. Jesus lifts up that community of the Father and the Son to illustrate that love

3 The glory that you have given me, I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as your have loved me. This is not mechanical, causal language but rather organic, relational language. Jesus is talking about being caught up in, surrounded by, Engrossed into and connected into the love of The Father and the Son. How can we image that? I was at the Metropolitan Museum last week and I saw two pictures: One was allegedly a picture of the trinity with God the Father Sitting on a throne behind the smaller Jesus on the cross The Father figure held the cross bar with a stoic look As a dove sat on the top of the cross. I was outraged with the idea of God the Father sitting stoic while his son died I don t think this is what Jesus was talking about when he says I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Jesus is talking about a Father who is there on the cross With the son, the God who dies as Jesus dies and Is raised as Jesus is raised in the unity of the Spirit

4 So that wasn t the right image for today s text. Then I went into another room in the Metropolitan Museum filled with European masterpieces of Madonna and Child. And that image of the child nursing with his mother So connected him to her and her to him That you could barely distinguish them. Now that s the kind of unity Jesus is talking about in John 17. And then I remembered the Pieta by Michaelangelo (front of bulletin) And was struck by the similarity between that image Of Mary holding the body of her son at the end of life And the Madonna and child images at the beginning And I knew that s what Jesus is talking about, When he said I am in the Father and the Father is in me. He is talking about a love between parent and child that is so deep That in live and death, that love shines through. Today, one of our elders, Jim Crabtree is preaching at Versailles And he shared and image in his sermon that demonstrates that love And he gave me permission to share it with you. It is a story from World War II and a man Solomon Rosenberg

5 Who was arrested with his 2 sons and wife and place in a Nazi prison camp. He knew that they would only be allowed to live as long as they were Strong and could work and one of his sons was a sickly child. So each day he would check to make sure his family was still there. One evening he found his oldest son huddled crying. Solomon asked his oldest son: Josh, tell me it s not true Josh said: It s true, poppa. Today David was not strong enough to do his work. So they came for him. But where s your mother? asked the elder mister Rosenberg. Oh poppa, when they came for David he was afraid and crying. Momma said, There s nothing to worry about and She went with him. Now that s love between a parent and a child And that s what this text and this prayer is saying to us about God s love. It s about holding on to each other as God holds onto us in Christ. It s not about what we do to each other It is about who we are for and with each other. It s about living out the organic unity that the Apostle Paul speaks of When he says Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ If

6 one member of the body suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. (I Corinthians 12: 12, 26) And that s what baptism is all about. It s about being united with brothers and sisters in faith Not because we are the same, or think the same, or look the same But because we are connected to each other Through the love of God in Christ who will not let us go. And that s how we pass the love of Christ to our children. It s not through Sunday School although that s a good thing. It s not by shipping them to Vacation Bible School Or church camp although all are good as well. But the best way to pass on the love of the Father is to enter that love. Let it envelope you so that your children see and taste it and feel it. That s what Jesus is talking about in this prayer when he says: So that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them. It s personal, it s relational, It s the courageous, contagious love of Jesus and the Father That s the love that Jesus lived out on the cross when he says: Mother behold your son. John, behold your mother. Amen