Unity and Glory Acts 16: 16-34 John 17: 20-26
Sermon for 7th Sunday of Easter ‘Unity and Glory’ preached at the Eucharist, Sherborne Abbey on Sunday 1st June 2025 by The Reverend Robert Green
(Acts Ch 16: v 16-34; John Ch 17: v 20-26)
Our Gospel Reading this morning from St. John’s Gospel Chapter 17 is the final section of Jesus’s Prayer at the Last Supper. The first section was a prayer for Himself as the Cross faced Him. The second section was for the disciples that God would protect and empower them, and the final part takes a sweep into the distant future as Jesus prays for those in distant lands and far-off ages who will also enter the Christian faith.
Despite the fact that at this stage the believers are few, and the Cross was looming, His confidence was unshaken, and He was praying for those who would believe in His name. In other words , He was praying for us!
His disciples didn’t fully understand Him, and He knew that in a very short time, they were going to abandon Him in His hour of sorest need, yet it was to these men he looked with complete confidence to spread the good news throughout the known world. Jesus never lost His faith in God or His confidence in people, and, that prayer was that all believers would be one as He and the Father are one. A prayer for unity. It was not a prayer for unity of administration or organisation. It was not a prayer for ecclesiastical unity. It was a prayer for unity of personal relationship. “That they may all be one, even as you, Father, are in me and I in you, so that they may be in us.” Just as Jesus had a relationship of love and obedience with His Father, Jesus prayed that we should have the same unity. We love each other because Jesus loves us. It is a unity based entirely on the relationship between heart and heart. It will never be that Christians will organise their Churches in the same way. It will never be that we will worship God in the same way It will never be that we will believe precisely and exactly the same things. Christian unity is a unity which transcends all these differences, and joins together all believers in love. I have a very dear friend who is a Roman Catholic priest, and there are matters with which we disagree, but foremost we respect each other as Christians who love Jesus.
The cause of Christian unity at the present time, and indeed all through history, has been injured and violated and hindered because we love our own ecclesiastical organisation, our own creeds, our own ritual more than we love each other. If we really loved each other and really loved Christ no one would ever be excluded from any Church, and no Church would ever exclude anyone who was Christ’s disciple. Only love implanted in our hearts by God can tear down the barriers which we have erected between each other and between our Churches.
It is only this kind of unity that will convince the world of the truth of Christianity and the place of Christ. It is more natural for people to be divided than united. The “soaps” that we see on television have their very existence based on conflict. There is always a reason for something to go wrong. It is more human for men and women to fly apart than come together. It is equally true that because the Church has never been able to show a united front, and, faced with the disunity of Christians and Churches, the world cannot see the supreme value of the Christian faith. It is our individual duty to demonstrate that unity of love with each other which is the answer to the prayer of Christ. As Wiliam Barclay wryly comments; ”it may well be that the rank and file of the Churches can do, and must do what the leaders of the Church refuse officially to do”. To a certain extent our Sherborne Churches Together bears witness to our unity as Christians in this town.
Last Thursday we celebrated Ascension Day when we remembered that Jesus ascended to be with His Father in glory, and it is this promise of glory to all believers with which this prayer ends. First it is addressed to the disciples, who had received the glory which the Father had given His Son. “I have given them the glory which you gave me, that they may be one as we are one”. First, the glory of Jesus was the Cross. He never spoke of being crucified, but of being glorified. The glory of Christians is the cross that we must bear. It is an honour and a glory to suffer for Christ. Whatever our cross may be, it is our glory. The harder a task may be it is an honour to achieve it. Second, Jesus was perfectly obedient to the will of God, and that was his glory. By the same token we find our glory, our honour, our life, not in doing what we like, but in doing God’s will. The greater the obedience, the greater the glory. Thirdly, Jesus’ glory lay in the fact that He had a very special relationship with God. No one could live the way He did unless He was specially and uniquely near to God. Our glory is when people see in us the reflection of God. It is our glory when people see in the service we render to others, in the love which we show to others a reflection of the Love of God. Our glory is when people see God in us.
Jesus has ascended to be with His Father in heaven in glory. It is our conviction that as Christians we will one day be with Jesus in His glory. What we experience now is only a foretaste of what is to come. If we share His glory and His sufferings on earth, we shall share His glory and His triumph when this earthly life comes to an end. As we regularly pray for our brothers and sisters departed this life;” that they may rest in peace and rise in glory.”