Seventh Sunday of Easter (Sunday after Ascension)
Eternity Lived
Acts 1.6-14; John 17.1-11
Christians are called to live eternity NOW. Not pie in the sky when you die, but heavenly pie in life’s ply and try! The prayer of Jesus in today’s gospel is clear that our lives here and now are to be shaped and directed by the gift of eternal life. And that means union with God. What an awesome thought; what an awesome goal. That knowing that Christ’s prays about is one of ultimacy and intimacy. God’s people are to know God with such closeness that only the word ‘union’ will do.
This is a pretty hard thought. Yes, Jesus can pray for union with God the Father; isn’t that an obvious part of what we understand by the incarnation? Jesus claims the glory of his union with the Father ‘before the world existed’ as John’s gospel has it (17.5). The Word was in the beginning with God, as the prologue of John’s gospel says. We can say that of Jesus, but saying it of ourselves is altogether more troublesome. We’re only human, and with our human character go all kinds of disqualifications for union with God. Sin, selfishness, conceit, hatred, laziness—I needn’t go on, it’s all too plain to see. And yet we were created for eternal life!
‘And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’ (John 17.3 NRSV). This intimacy of knowing is about a quality of living that takes in the whole of a person—body, mind and soul. Jesus prays that the discipleship we undertake will lead to the same kind of union he himself knows with the Father. Wow! Enjoy that kind of living right now. When once we’ve seen our goal on the horizon nothing else will do.
Years ago I had a running coach. He used to drum into me continually need to keep my eyes looking towards the finishing tape, whether I could see it or not. I used to run the 400 metres so there were corners to tackle when the temptation was always to look to see how other runners were doing. Fatal! Keep your eyes; keep your will on the finish. The same is essential in discipleship: we must keep our eyes, our intention, and our will, fixed on eternal life. But how?
I think there’s help in the very thing Jesus is doing in this gospel passage. Jesus prays for his disciples and friends, for himself, and for all Christians of every time and place. He prays for us. Chapter seventeen of John is by far the longest prayer on Jesus’ lips we have. It makes plain again that for Jesus prayer was an essential component of being alive. This is no add-on to what he does and says. It is part of the very breath of his life—a necessity of living.
Somewhere Mahatma Gandhi wrote, ‘I discovered that after a time of prayer, I was able to do a far greater amount of work. A doctor has testified as a medical fact that my blood pressure was lowered by it, my nerves calmer, my mind rested and alert, my whole body in better health. I was refreshed and ready for work, and if previously I had been in a mood of pessimism and despair, after I prayed I was charged with new hope and confidence.’
If that’s the witness of an admirer of Christ who did not share our faith, how much more seriously should we take it in the light of so many Christian witnesses who say the same thing. Eternal life now means sharing the prayer of Christ now—regularly, earnestly, and unhurriedly. It must be as breathing to us, as it was for Jesus.
The Anglican tradition of the Christian faith is one that has looked to prayer shared from its very inception. Our foundation document is The Book of Common Prayer and its authors were concerned to encourage every believer to join with others regularly in that common prayer. Indeed they thought the unity of the Church as the Body of Christ hinged on the commonality of shared prayer. The character and quality of our faith is shaped by our prayer together.
This is how we keep our eyes and wills fixed on eternal life—by our praying. This is how we encourage each other in running the race of discipleship; this is how we prepare ourselves to recognize eternal verities in the commonplace of ordinary lives; this is how we are reminded again and again of the ways we can keep close to Christ and let his intentions direct our living.
P.T. Forsyth once told a congregation, ‘When you reflect after worship, “What have I done today?” say to yourself, “I have yielded myself to take part with the Church in Christ’s finished act of redemption, which is greater than the making of the world.” That’s the awesome significance both of our worship and our prayer.
There’s glory: there’s eternity lived NOW.
This is a pretty hard thought. Yes, Jesus can pray for union with God the Father; isn’t that an obvious part of what we understand by the incarnation? Jesus claims the glory of his union with the Father ‘before the world existed’ as John’s gospel has it (17.5). The Word was in the beginning with God, as the prologue of John’s gospel says. We can say that of Jesus, but saying it of ourselves is altogether more troublesome. We’re only human, and with our human character go all kinds of disqualifications for union with God. Sin, selfishness, conceit, hatred, laziness—I needn’t go on, it’s all too plain to see. And yet we were created for eternal life!
‘And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’ (John 17.3 NRSV). This intimacy of knowing is about a quality of living that takes in the whole of a person—body, mind and soul. Jesus prays that the discipleship we undertake will lead to the same kind of union he himself knows with the Father. Wow! Enjoy that kind of living right now. When once we’ve seen our goal on the horizon nothing else will do.
Years ago I had a running coach. He used to drum into me continually need to keep my eyes looking towards the finishing tape, whether I could see it or not. I used to run the 400 metres so there were corners to tackle when the temptation was always to look to see how other runners were doing. Fatal! Keep your eyes; keep your will on the finish. The same is essential in discipleship: we must keep our eyes, our intention, and our will, fixed on eternal life. But how?
I think there’s help in the very thing Jesus is doing in this gospel passage. Jesus prays for his disciples and friends, for himself, and for all Christians of every time and place. He prays for us. Chapter seventeen of John is by far the longest prayer on Jesus’ lips we have. It makes plain again that for Jesus prayer was an essential component of being alive. This is no add-on to what he does and says. It is part of the very breath of his life—a necessity of living.
Somewhere Mahatma Gandhi wrote, ‘I discovered that after a time of prayer, I was able to do a far greater amount of work. A doctor has testified as a medical fact that my blood pressure was lowered by it, my nerves calmer, my mind rested and alert, my whole body in better health. I was refreshed and ready for work, and if previously I had been in a mood of pessimism and despair, after I prayed I was charged with new hope and confidence.’
If that’s the witness of an admirer of Christ who did not share our faith, how much more seriously should we take it in the light of so many Christian witnesses who say the same thing. Eternal life now means sharing the prayer of Christ now—regularly, earnestly, and unhurriedly. It must be as breathing to us, as it was for Jesus.
The Anglican tradition of the Christian faith is one that has looked to prayer shared from its very inception. Our foundation document is The Book of Common Prayer and its authors were concerned to encourage every believer to join with others regularly in that common prayer. Indeed they thought the unity of the Church as the Body of Christ hinged on the commonality of shared prayer. The character and quality of our faith is shaped by our prayer together.
This is how we keep our eyes and wills fixed on eternal life—by our praying. This is how we encourage each other in running the race of discipleship; this is how we prepare ourselves to recognize eternal verities in the commonplace of ordinary lives; this is how we are reminded again and again of the ways we can keep close to Christ and let his intentions direct our living.
P.T. Forsyth once told a congregation, ‘When you reflect after worship, “What have I done today?” say to yourself, “I have yielded myself to take part with the Church in Christ’s finished act of redemption, which is greater than the making of the world.” That’s the awesome significance both of our worship and our prayer.
There’s glory: there’s eternity lived NOW.
