Seventh Sunday of Easter (C)
June 1, 2025
Text: John 17:20-26
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Jesus prays for His Church. Our Holy Gospel this afternoon is a selection
from what is often called our Lord’s “High Priestly Prayer,” prayed on the
night in which He was betrayed. Priests
pray. Prayer is one of the important
sacrifices a priest offers on behalf of the people. So, here, our High Priest, Jesus, prays for
us.
He prays that we may all be one, just as He, the
Son, is one with the Father. He is
praying for our unity. Unity of
doctrine. Unity of life. Unity of love.
Division is from the evil one. The things that divide Christians from one
another… and the Holy Christian Church into denominations… are evil. False doctrines divide us. It is not true doctrine that divides
us. True doctrine… biblical
doctrine… unites us. Jesus is praying
that we be united in believing, teaching, and confessing what God
Himself gives us in Holy Scripture to believe, teach, and confess,
and that we be protected from everything that is wicked and false.
Sin divides us.
Some denominations teach that certain sins are to be tolerated and
affirmed. They do this because they
think this tolerance and affirmation will unite us. But they are mistaken. This is a lie from the evil one. Sin always destroys. It destroys relationships. It destroys lives. It destroys unity. In contrast, God’s Word gives life. It forgives sins, and imparts wisdom. It fosters relationships and bestows unity. Holy lives, lived under God’s mercy in
Christ, and according to God’s Word, unite us.
Jesus is praying that God would keep us by His Word and Spirit, so that,
as Dr. Luther says, we “lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity.”[1]
Lovelessness divides us.
Manifested as pride, selfishness, or simply despising our neighbor,
lovelessness destroys unity. By
definition, it destroys our relationships with one another. It destroys friendships. It destroys families. And it is deadly in the Christian
congregation. The devil delights in this
destruction. But Jesus prays for
us. He prays that the very love
with which the Father loves the Son, would be manifest in us, and
among us. To be sure, our Lord
would have us hold one another in high esteem, and give of ourselves for the
good of one another, even as He has given Himself, His very life into death on
the cross, for our good, and for our salvation.
But the love between the Father and the Son is something even more
surprising than a feeling or self-sacrificial action. This love is a Person. This love is the Holy Spirit.
Jesus is praying that the Holy Spirit would be in us,
and that, in this way, He Himself (Christ) would be in us. So that we be swept up into the very
life of the Holy Trinity, and into His glory, where there is nothing false or
sinful. Where there is no lovelessness… there
could not be, for “God is love” (1 John 4:16; ESV). Where there is no division… there could not
be, for “God is one” (Rom. 3:30).
And Jesus doesn’t only pray that we be swept up
into this unity, the life of the eternal Trinity. He effects it. He makes it so. How?
By His holy, precious blood. By
His innocent suffering and death. To
atone for our false beliefs, our sin and shame, our pride and selfishness, our
lovelessness. To do them to death
on His cross. In order that our sad
divisions cease. And that we all be
one, gathered together by His outstretched arms into the Kingdom of His
Father, the Temple of His Spirit, the one, holy, Christian, and apostolic
Church.
That is, He does it by sacrifice. Priests sacrifice. Our High Priest, Jesus, sacrificed Himself on
our behalf. Our unity flows from that
sacrifice. And we receive all the
benefits of that sacrifice right here, in words and water, bread and
wine.
Jesus prays for His Church. Jesus sacrificed Himself for His Church. Jesus lives for His Church. He lives for you.
Alleluia! Christ
is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
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