This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news:

BIN LADEN KILLED-CROWDS REJOICE 

1 John 1:1-10

1We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us— 3we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4We are writing this to you so that our joy may be complete.

5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; 7but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

light is all colours but no darkness

John 17:1-11

Jesus Prays for His Disciples

17After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, 2since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. 5So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

6 ‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

These passages are from different stages of the “John literature” in the New Testament. Scholars have dated the Gospel from 75 AD to 120 AD; and First Letter from 80AD to 125AD. They represent a tradition of early Christian faith and practice which can be distinguished from that represented by the other Gospels and from the tradition associated with Paul.

The beginning of the Letters sets out magnificently the main themes of this tradition.

1. Jesus, the Word of Life has existed from the “beginning” with God and revealed himself to human senses as a human person.
2. He opened the eternal life of the Father to believers.
3. This life is pure goodness and truth: there is in God no evil or deception.
4. The life of believers is not free from evil but they show their faith by living in the truth which exposes their sin.
5. Those who do this are forgiven and cleansed from evil by the sacrificial death of Jesus.
6. The aim of communicating this message is that more people may “share the life” of God and the lives of other believers.
7. The expansion of the believing community increases the joy of its members.

The prayer of Jesus set in the Gospel chapter 17 is the author’s way of summing up the meaning of Jesus’ ministry. The whole prayer is part of that ministry: he “brings” his disciples into his relationship with God in prayer as he has done in his ministry and will do forever as their risen Lord. They “know” God through Jesus. This verb has a powerful sexual connotation in Hebrew which is continued in John’s theology: to know God is to become one flesh with him. Paul also sees marital intercourse as a symbol of the life believers share with God. 

The glory of the son is to express fully the “name” or character of the Father in the flesh. This happens on the cross in which the goodness and truth of God are shown to be love even for the world which hates him. (The joy of worldly people at the death of Jesus should lead us to question expressions of joy at any man’s death.)

It should be clear from all this that the oneness that Jesus prays for his followers is not the structural unity of Christian denominations, as is sometimes claimed, but rather a fundamental binding together of human lives in the life they share with God, which is love. They are in the world and will continue to share God’s eternal life in their human flesh as well as in the spirit.

Jesus doesn’t pray for me alone but only for me as part of the community of faith and he prays that above all I should continue to be part of that community. This is a rebuke to my individualism.