Love That Absorbs – John 17:20-26

A text – John 17:20-26

²⁰ “I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, ²¹ that they may all be one. As you, Father, 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. ²² The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, ²³ I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. ²⁴ Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

²⁵ “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you, and these know that you have sent me. ²⁶ I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.”

A reflection:

Our gospel text this week comes from the very end of the part of the book of John that is set at the last supper. Jesus has been answering questions from his disciples about why he has to leave them, where he is going, and his mission as they know it. But in Chapter 17, Jesus stops answering them and turns to the Father, to whom he begins to pray for them. He is praying for them, right in front of them.

Of course this prayer is also giving them information. Jesus and the Father (and the Holy Spirit) are One. Perhaps a few of the disciples are beginning to see that the picture of God they had in their heads from childhood onward was not quite complete – God is more complex and more interesting and more multifaceted than they had ever imagined. Jesus and God the Creator are One. And Jesus is beseeching the Father that these beloved followers of his may be unified, together with each other and with the Triune God, so that they might be a sign to the world that God is One and God is love.

I wonder, as I read the prayer that Jesus prays right before they leave for the Garden of Gethsemane, whether the disciples were grasping Jesus’s prayer, whether they were simply taken up into his reverie and requests of the Father, or whether they were just too anxious about what lay just ahead for all of them. I’m pretty sure I would have been anxious and not listening very well. When I am too anxious, I don’t hear anything properly. But to be able to have heard Jesus himself praying that believers be taken up into the very Oneness of God, that Oneness being LOVE…

Jesus wants the love of God to pour out, to absorb up, and to trickle through everything and everyone. Love that floods out fear, anxiety, hate, rivalry, jealousy, and desire to use power to control. Love that reminds us whose we are. Love that reinforms us daily who we are called to be. Love that overwhelms us so that we can only BE, exuding that love to others… What a final gift for his friends!            

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for giving us John’s gospel that reminds us that you are love and that you want to pour that love out to the whole world through those who believe in you. Help us to pause and be absorbed in your love today and each day so that we can pour it out to others. Amen.