"Whom God the Father Chose to Send"

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

What does it mean to be one, or to be united? It seems that a great many things today are “united”, at least in name. The United States of America. United Van Lines. United Auto Workers. The United Methodist Church. All these entities say they are united, but what does that mean? What does it mean for us to be united, to be one?

“And this is eternal life...” What is eternal life? For us to ask that is a bit like asking a person born blind, what is green? And, depending on whom you ask, you will get different answers.

For a great deal of people in this world, eternal life means simply nothingness. The goal in life is to be released from the prison of matter and time and space and simply to be nothing. Nirvana, bliss, being at peace with the universe. Whatever you want to call it, it seems attractive. After all, there is no judgment, no right or wrong, no ending or beginning, just being.

Of course, for the more modern mind, there is the notion that eternal life exists simply in having your name live on after you. Make a dent in the world. Leave something to show for your labors. Make sure someone remembers you. What will people say about you one hundred years from now? What will be your monument to posterity?

Otherwise, you could choose to believe the notion that there is simply a closed loop of life in this cosmos. For every death, there is a birth. The force flows through everything, binding us all together in one giant loop of energy recycling. The good life is in using your energy well.

If none of those options appeal to you, you could fall in with those who say there is no eternal life. The Sadducees in Jesus' day found this premise easy enough, and in fact, most Jews today could care less about the afterlife. However, this message can be found in Christian-esque packaging as well. Simply live your best life now, and God will fill in the blanks. If you just try hard enough, wish long enough, and pray specifically enough, then your fairy godmother will come and give you a pony. It is really all about what happens now, so just let God sort it out in the end.

Or you could take a page out of the Jehovah's Witnesses' book. They say that if you aren't good enough, you will simply be annihilated. You will die and instantly cease to exist. No hell, no punishment, no torment, not even recirculation. Just non-existence. On one hand, this seems frightening, but it is a whole lot less intimidating than a lake of burning sulfur.

However, all these ideas of eternal life, or the lack thereof, are myths of our own devising. You and I continually feel the desire to invent our own ideas of what will happen to us after we die, because, left to our own devices, we firstly have no idea of what lies ahead, and secondly do not even want to think about what God threatens to do to those who disobey Him. We prefer to continue transgressing the First Commandment and creating gods and hereafters in our own image.

But Jesus tells us what eternal life is: “that they know You the only God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” This is eternal life – life in Christ.

To this end, Jesus prays, “And now, Father, glorify me in Your own presence with the glory that I had with You before the world existed.” This is why the Father chose to send Jesus into the world, that His glory might be made manifest to us poor miserable sinners. According to the good will and loving plan of our heavenly Father, He sent Jesus in the fullness of time to bear our sin and be our savior. In Him, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. In Him, the face of God became a human face, and we beheld the glory of God in human flesh. The glory of God was preached to us by a human mouth, as Jesus spoke to His people of old, and they heard the Word of God and felt the working of the Holy Spirit in their hearts and lives. The glory was revealed to those who would see and hear, but in order that all might see and believe, Jesus manifested the glory of God by being lifted up upon the cross and baring the glory of God before the eyes of the world. For in the cross of Christ, the love of God was on display, in that He loved us enough to condemn His Son to the death owed us, in order that we might receive the life which belongs to Him.

Jesus was never without the glory of God, but He chose to forgo the splendor and majesty which are His from before the foundations of the world, so that He might pick them up again from the cross, and through His death and resurrection give them for us and to us, that we might be glorified in Him forevermore.

And now, Jesus says to our Father, “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” Jesus has given His great glory to us, that we might be joined to Him.

Jesus has given His glory first each to you and me in the waters of Holy Baptism. There, in that blessed bath, He sundered us from the number of the unbelieving. He retrieved us from the devil's prison and the darkness of our own sin, and broke the bonds that held us captive. Then, with that same water, our Lord joined Himself to us by making us sons of our Father in heaven and brothers in flesh and spirit with Jesus Christ. He has joined us to His death and resurrection, that we might have His life and salvation. In like manner, he has added us to the number of the saints accounted righteous because of His grace and glory.

And now, our Lord continues to create unity in us through His Word. The Word of God preached to you and to me accomplishes the same effect – to break our sinful hearts of stone and give us new hearts of flesh. The Word unites us in the truth and unites us in vision because in the Word we hear the voice of God calling us. And so our lips are filled with the same confession of the one true God, the only Savior, and the one holy, Christian, and apostolic Church. We are sanctified in His Word, for His Word is truth, and His endures forever.

Each time we are called to His altar, our Lord Christ sustains unity in us through His own Body and Blood. He calls to you and me each to come to His Table and to be fed with the same food, and to be forgiven of our sins in the same lavish grace. As you and I come to this blessed feast and receive the one Body and Blood of Jesus, He joins each of us to Himself through the forgiveness of sins and faith in His Word. And therefore, through Christ, we are united to one another. There can be no divisions at the table of the Lord, because the one Christ is united to us all, and we are united by the forgiveness of our sins and our shared life in Him.

This, then is the reason for which the Father has sent Jesus to us. “O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.