Seventh Sunday of Easter

John 17:20-26

June 1, 2025

John 17 is known as our Lord’s “high priestly prayer.” He prays for his apostles and by extension His whole church. He prays that His people remain strong in the midst of great persecution, joyful in suffering, sanctified in the truth, and protected throughout all time.

The last 6 verses of His high priestly prayer is our Gospel today. As we consider His words in this prayer, there are a few questions we should ask. First, what is the ultimate goal in what He is praying. Second, why pray it at all; what is the problem or malady He’s addressing, and finally how does His prayer resolve the malady; how does it offer a solution to the problem being addressed?

So, why is Jesus praying this portion of the prayer; what does He hope to accomplish? Well it’s pretty clear throughout the text. Jesus wants His people, His church to be one just as the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one. Not, partially one, but fully one. Our Lord desires that we be one with Him and with one another just as the Godhead is one within itself, Father, Son, and Spirit all one God.

Wow, this is a tall order, isn’t it? Think about the oneness of God. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is ONE God.” God is one – He is united in every way, emotionally, spiritually, theologically, in purpose, in goals, in methods – in every way possible God is one – Father, Son, and Spirit are on the same page. Jesus is praying that you and me and His whole church be one in the very same way – perfectly one.

Again, it’s a very tall order. However, it’s not unheard of. Adam and Eve were created to exist in this way with the Lord and with one another. See, God created humanity in His image and likeness which includes His unity, His oneness. So, humanity was this way at one time, albeit for a very short time. For no sooner did Adam and Eve walk in the oneness of God’s perfect creation than sin entered the world and the oneness was broken. In fact, it was so broken that all humanity became one with sin, death, and the devil. And since the devil is chaos, humanity became chaotic with him.

And what does sin do that it makes us so divided against God and one another? At its core, sin turns us in on ourselves, with each individual pining for godhood, struggling for dominance and power and control. The promise of Satan, should our first parents eat from the forbidden tree, was, “You shall be like God.”

But the devil’s promise was a lie. Humanity already was like God in the fullest sense because we were one with Him and He with us and we with one another. Sin did nothing but separate us from God and one another.

Since sin entered the world, our struggle has been to protect our individuality, our rights, our freedoms, our freedoms to choose our path, our career, our college major, our…well our everything. Each one of us lives more as individuals than we do as a people who are one with God and with one another. We built a whole nation on the idea of individualism and individual rights and individual freedoms. In fact, our culture today is so obsessed with individuality that each person thinks he has god power of his own sexuality, his own gender, even his own species. “My rights and my individuality are more important than yours,” decries the sinner. But the problem is that the dichotomy is wrong.

Life is not about my individual rights, or your individual rights, bodily autonomy, “My body, My choice,” or any of that inward, “me” focused stuff. And a pursuit of such living is the same pursuit of Adam and Eve as they bit into the fruit of death and separation.

And in the church, our Christian faith is not about each individual person, each one of us believing as we please about this, that, or the other. And yet, look at the believers today. The church is more divided and splintered today than ever. A church denomination for every individual flavor or individual confession. We have each made ourselves as gods over the Word of God, each individual deciding for him or her self what to believe or what not to believe. And we say, “how can we be one; everyone disagrees; the Bible has so many interpretations; unity of doctrine and practice is impossible.” Well yeah, in a world where people believe themselves to be gods over God, this is absolutely correct.

But it’s not the world Jesus prays for, and it’s not the church Jesus prays for. He prays for a united church, a united people. And His prayer is not for some hallmark card unity, some cliché unity or sentimental unity just to make people feel good for a while. Jesus prays for true, endless unity, perfect unity, such as the unity of the godhead.

See, Jesus did not come to elevate or celebrate our sinful nature or our inwardness; He did not come to prop up our individuality, but He came to put it all to death so that the oneness of original creation might return. He came to set us free; He came that we might be one as He and the Father are one. And to do it, Jesus allowed Himself to become separated and despised and die alone on the cross.

The only way to defeat the divider, the liar, the deceiver who brings nothing but separation and discord into creation was for Jesus to humble Himself to a mere servant of men, even to the point of death on the cross. His perfect oneness with His Father was also His perfect obedience to His Father as He face the wrath and punishment that every individual that has ever lived is owed.

You and I, because of our sin, because of our trying to be like God in a very backward and inward way, we deserve the wrath of God He promised. But Jesus took the wrath for us. Our blood deserves to be shed, but His blood was shed.

Jesus has made what is impossible to be, not only possible, but reality, by dying and rising again and finally and forever defeating the author of discord, Satan and His lies.

And so, today, even though we do not yet experience it fully but one day will, we have oneness once again with the heavenly Father, and we have oneness with one another. We are all baptized into this one faith, into this one church, into the one God and Father of us all.

Does this mean that there is no discord among the ranks? Absolutely not. We still live in these sinful bodies, and have sinful minds and hearts, and the cry for individuality dances on the tips of our tongues. But as we pray in the Lord’s prayer, and as our Lord prays in His High Priestly Prayer, our lives, through daily repentance and confession of sin, must move away from the discourse of individuality and disunity, and onward to unity and oneness with God and one another. Oneness has been won in Christ, but this wilderness walk is one of learning to be one, growing more and more away from the sin and vices of the world and the flesh, and onward toward the virtues of cross bearing and abiding in our Lord.

Theologically, one; in service to others, one; approaching this altar to receive this one body broken and one blood shed, united in faith and confession. This is our Lord’s prayer, that we be one as He and the Father are one. May we, by His Spirit and provision, be one. Amen.