Scripture: John 17:20-26
Title: The Whole of the Moon
Structure:
- Introduction
- Jesus prays for us to be one
- Made one by Jesus’ glory (love & suffering)
- Made one for a purpose (that others would know & believe)
- Conclusion
Introduction:
[Play the first 2 mins and 5 secs of the song: ‘The Whole of the Moon’]
I pictured a rainbow, you held it in your hands.
I had flashes but you saw the plan.
I wandered out in the world for years, while you just stayed in your room.
I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon, the whole of the moon.
You were there at the turn stiles with the wind at your heels
You stretched for the stars and you know how it feels to reach too high, too far, too soon, you saw the whole of the moon.
I was grounded, while you filled the skies.
I was dumbfounded by truth, you cut through lies.
I saw the rain dirty valley, you saw Brigadoon.
I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon.
Can anyone tell me the name of the band who wrote this song? [Wait]
– That’s right – The Waterboys
– It’s a song about someone who has the vision to see the bigger picture, beyond the immediate, beyond the here & now
Over the past couple of weeks we have been working our way through Jesus’ prayer in John 17
– Jesus prayed this prayer the night before his trial, crucifixion and death
– He knew very well what was coming
– If it was any of us I imagine our focus would be quite narrow – we would be thinking about the pain of the next day – the here & now
– We would struggle to see beyond Good Friday
– But Jesus has a bigger perspective
– Yes, he prays for himself, but his vision stretches higher & further than that
– Jesus sees the whole of the moon – not just the crescent of his crucifixion
– He looks out across the centuries and sees the millions who will believe in him and come to know God’s love
– From verse 20 of John 17 Jesus prays for us…
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this reading
Jesus prays for us to be one:
Jesus’ prayer in these verses is that we, who believe in him, may be one
– What then does it mean to be one?
Well, to be one can mean a number of things
– Last week we heard how Jesus prayed for his disciples to be one and I connected this oneness with integrity, because in the context Jesus was talking about holiness and integrity is an aspect of holiness
From a mathematical perspective, to be one is to be whole or to be 100%, as opposed to something less than one, like a half or some other fraction
– So when Jesus asks God the Father to make those who believe in him one he could mean he wants us to be whole – both whole in an individual sense but also whole in a collective sense
To be whole in an individual sense means to be undivided, completely committed to God and without split loyalties
– Being one is akin to being pure in heart, not having mixed motives and not serving two masters
– In Matthew 5 Jesus promised that the pure in heart will see God
– There is a certain peace & joy which comes with being one thing and not a whole lot of different things
– So, in praying for us to be one, Jesus could mean he wants our personal undivided loyalty – he wants the whole of us not just some part
To be one (or whole) in a collective sense means having no one missing from the group
– Last week I used the analogy of a football team being one (or having integrity) when all 11 players are on the field and in the right position
– If a player gets sent off or out of position then the team loses something of its integrity or its oneness
– In Luke 15 Jesus tells three parables: about a lost sheep, a lost coin and two lost sons
– In each of those stories Jesus is making the point that God’s purpose is to restore, to make things whole again – make them one
– The shepherd’s flock of a 100 sheep is not whole if one is missing
– Just as the woman’s set of 10 silver coins is not whole if one is missing
– And the family is not whole (it doesn’t have integrity) if either one of the sons becomes estranged from the father or each other
– So, in praying for us to be one, Jesus could also mean he wants no one to be lost
Looking more closely at the context of John 17, Jesus says in verses 21-23…
– I pray… that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity.
This tells us the oneness Jesus has in mind is relational – we are one with each other in the same way that God the Father and God the Son are one
– Jesus seems to be talking about an ontological oneness here – a oneness of being, something intrinsically shared
– God the Father and Jesus the Son are not the same person but they share the same essence, the same Spirit, the same DNA so to speak
– Likewise, we who believe that Jesus is from God share a oneness of being
– We share the same Spirit, or the same spiritual DNA
– This oneness of being is given and inherent – it is not something we create ourselves through some sophisticated organisational structure
– For example, we Baptists, here in New Zealand, are one with Coptic Christians in Egypt, even though we are different in other ways
Unity, as you know, does not mean uniformity – it doesn’t mean everyone being the same
– Unity allows for diversity while at the same time holding some things in common. So what is it we hold in common?
– Well Jesus says, I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one…
– This tells us we are made one by the glory of Jesus
Made one by Jesus’ glory:
Once again the glory God gave Jesus can mean a number of things – two things in particular from the context:
– God gave Jesus the glory of being loved and the glory of suffering
The glory of love
– First the glory of love. Jesus says in verse 24…
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”
- – And then in verse 26 he says…
“Righteous Father… I…will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them….”
God loved Jesus and Jesus passes that love on to us, therefore the love of God makes us one – we are all loved by God, we share this in common
– What did the one lost sheep share with the other 99 who didn’t go astray?
– The lost sheep was loved just as much as the other 99
– What did the younger (prodigal) son share in common with the older (resentful) son?
– They were both loved equally by the Father
– To see the glory of Jesus is to know that we are loved by God
I don’t know if you have ever been in love, or if you can remember, but when you love someone they populate your every thought
– You find it hard to be without them, hard not to talk about them
– And you become quite jealous where they are concerned – not jealous in a bad way but jealous in the sense of wanting the best for them
– When you love someone it hurts not to be able to express your love – you want to tell them of your love and show them love in any way you can
Jesus is saying in his prayer that he wants us to know the glory of his love, which is essentially the love that God the Father has for him
– And this is remarkable really when we consider that Jesus was about to be crucified – At a time when most of us would be focused on ourselves, because of the ordeal that lay ahead, Jesus’ thoughts are populated by us
– Although he is about to depart this world, while we remain here, Jesus ultimately wants us to be with him where he is
– Jesus is jealous for us – not jealous in a bad way but jealous in the sense that he wants the best for us
– He wants us to know how much we are loved by God
There are times in this life when it is difficult to believe that we are loved by God – times when circumstances are against us and darkness closes in
– We see the crescent – we see only in part – we don’t yet realise the full extent of God’s love for us
– But Jesus sees the whole of the moon and he wants us to see the full glory of God’s love too
We are talking about the glory that Jesus has given us – the glory that makes us one: first there is the glory of love, but there is also the glory of suffering
The glory of suffering
Suffering is the natural partner of love
– Suffering strips away illusion – it proves the truth of love, actually helps us to see love in all its glory
I’d like to play you part of Joni Mitchell’s song, ‘Both Sides Now’ …
Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way that you feel
As every fairy tale comes real
I’ve looked at love that way.
But now it’s just another show
And you leave them laughing when you go
And if you can don’t let them know
Don’t give yourself away
I’ve looked at love from both sides now
From give and take and still somehow
Its love’s illusions that I recall
I really don’t know love
I really don’t know love at all
There are two sides to love aren’t there
– There’s the wonderful high we get from love – the dizzy dancing way you feel – and then the fairy tale comes real
– There is the joy of being with the one you love and then the pain & grief we feel when we lose our lover
“Love’s illusions” are normally felt by us in the early stages of a relationship, when we are blind
– Love’s illusions makes us think the good feeling will last forever
– Love’s illusions lead us to make grand promises we can never keep – to imagine we are invincible and the rules don’t apply to us
– Love’s illusions is what we recall because the pain of love:
o The giving of ourselves when there is nothing in it for us,
o The long haul commitment,
o The things that irritate us and make us mad,
o The way our lover shows us a mirror for a faults,
o The grief we feel when death separates us,
o All the suffering of true love, we prefer not to face
– Love’s illusions are sweeter
There can be a romanticism in Christian faith that actually sets us up for a fall
– Sometimes we believe in a fairy tale, don’t we – one in which God’s love for us equates to a dizzy dancing feeling that we think will last forever
– We imagine our faith to be invincible and we make grand promises in the worship songs we sing and the prayers we pray, promises we can’t keep
– We might think, for our faith to be true we must always feel peace & joy,
– But then the ‘fairy tale comes real’ and God seems distant
– We might feel alone, like God has abandoned us to sickness or despair or the violence of our unwanted thoughts & compulsions, the tyranny of self
We find that sanctification, being made holy, becoming like Christ, includes being shown a mirror of all our faults and it’s too much to take
– Sometimes being a believer in Jesus is bliss – but much of the time it’s just hard graft, in this world at least (I’m not sure what the next life holds)
– And ‘still somehow its love’s illusion we recall – we really don’t know love at all.’
Suffering is the natural partner of love
– Suffering strips away illusion – it proves the truth of love, actually shows us love in all its glory
– We can’t know how much God loves us until we look in the mirror and see what we are really like
– Nor can we know how much we love God until we give ourselves to him when it seems there’s nothing in it for us
Jesus gives us the glory God gave him and that glory includes both love and suffering
– We might not all suffer in the same way, but we all suffer, and so our oneness comes from carrying our cross, as Christ carried his cross
– We are to love one another because God first loved us and because we are all hurting in our own private way
– We don’t ‘give ourselves away’ when maybe sometimes we should
– Life is hard – we need to be on each other’s side
Made one for a purpose:
There is purpose in the oneness of our love & suffering
– We are made one, not just for ourselves, but primarily for others – that the world would know and believe that Jesus comes from God
In verse 21 Jesus says…
Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
– And in verse 23 he says…
…May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
In verse 21 Jesus prays for our oneness so, that the world may believe and in verse 23 he asks that we be brought to unity, that the world may know
– Believing & knowing go hand in hand in this context
– It seems the kind of knowing Jesus has in mind here is not just a superficial mental awareness but the knowing of deep conviction
– Believing it in your core – trusting the knowledge
The relationship between knowledge & belief is found throughout the Bible
– In Psalm 9, verse 10, for example we read…
– Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.
To help us understand the relationship between knowing and believing, imagine you are standing on one side of a huge chasm
– There is no way around and the only way across is a narrow swing bridge
– To get to the other side of the chasm you need to know where the swing bridge is and how to get to it
– But simply knowing where the bridge is, is not enough in itself to get you across
Once you have reached the bridge you then need the faith to cross it
– You need to believe that it will hold your weight and that the destination on the other side is worth the risk
Jesus is the bridge
– The miracle of our oneness is the sign which points to the bridge so people know where to cross
– And knowledge of God’s love for us helps people to believe in Jesus, to trust him – it gives people confidence to cross over to the other side
– (Because if God can love us he can love anyone)
In John 9 Jesus heals a man born blind
– This man then gets interrogated by the Pharisees
– The Pharisees say, ‘We don’t know where Jesus comes from’
– And the man replies:
– “What a strange thing that is. You don’t know where he comes from but he cured me of my blindness… Unless this man came from God he would not be able to do a thing.”
– The Pharisees didn’t like that logic so they expelled the man from the synagogue
At that point the man born blind can see the crescent but he can’t see the whole of the moon – he knows that Jesus is a prophet, who comes from God, but he doesn’t yet realise that Jesus is far more than a prophet
When Jesus heard what had happened he found the man and asked him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
The man answered, “Tell me who he is, sir, so that I can believe in him!”
Jesus said to him, “You have already seen him, and he is the one who is talking with you now.”
“I believe, Lord!” the man said, and knelt down before Jesus.
Knowledge and belief go hand in hand
– Knowledge enables us to see the crescent
– Belief helps us to see the whole of the moon
Conclusion:
This morning we’ve heard how Jesus prayed for us, who believe in him without ever having seen him
– Jesus prayed that we may be one as he and God the Father are one
– We are made one by the glory Jesus gives us – the glory of God’s love and suffering
– And we are made one for a purpose – so the world may know & believe that God sent Jesus
Questions for discussion or reflection:
1.) What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon?
– Why do you think this stood out to you?
2.) Have you had the experience of seeing the crescent of something and then being shown the whole of the moon? What happened?
3.) What do you think Jesus had in mind when he prayed for us to be one?
– Discuss (or reflect on) the possibilities
4.) What did Jesus say makes us one?
– What is the glory Jesus has given us?
5.) To what extent do you (personally) know you are loved by God?
– How do you know this?
– Why is suffering necessary to love?
6.) Listen to Joni Mitchell’s song, ‘Both Sides Now’
– What are you in touch with as you listen? (What do you feel and remember?)
7.) Why did Jesus pray for us to be one?
– Why do we need to love one another?
8.) Thinking of the man healed by Jesus in John 9, what is the relationship between knowledge and belief/faith?
– Why is knowledge necessary to belief, and vice versa?
Tawa Baptist 