Readings
Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14,16-17,20-21
John 17:20-26
Today we go back to the night before Jesus died. Today we go back to the great prayer that Jesus prayed for his disciples and those who would come after him. We hear only a snippet of that prayer this morning, but it’s a profound snippet. In this prayer Jesus prays that just as he and the father are in one another that he and we may be in one another. He prays for our unity so that the world may believe. And he prays that the love of God be in us and that he be in us as well.
What are we to make of such a prayer? What does it mean for us to be in Jesus and for Jesus to be in us. What does it mean to be one with Jesus just as Jesus is one with the Father? What does it mean for God’s love to be in us?
Well, put simply, Jesus’ words found in this passage in the Gospel of John are a call and a recognition that we are to be the embodiment of Christ in our own day. We are to be nothing less than the Jesus of our time.
Now stop and reflect on that for a moment. We are to be the embodiment of Christ. We are to be the Jesus of the time and place in which we find ourselves.
If that doesn’t give you pause, then I would invite you to ponder further. The Christ who healed the sick, preached the good news of God’s kingdom, challenged both the political and religious authorities of his day, and ultimately died on a cross for the sake of us and the God he believed in, is who we are being called to embody. Jesus’ prayer in this Gospel is that, just as he embodied God, we are called to embody him in our own place and time.
If I stop and think about my own proclivities and failings, I feel woefully inadequate to such a task. I am not Jesus. I am not the son of God. I am all too aware of my propensity for sin and my falling short of the mark.
But perhaps such thinking misses the point. Perhaps such thinking is a way of letting ourselves off the hook. What if this is not a task to perform, but a way to be? What if this is less about perfection and more about faith. And what if, by saying it’s about faith, we are really saying that it is about our relationship to God and more importantly God’s relationship to us?
Perhaps being the embodiment of Jesus isn’t so much about our successes or failures as much as it is about our love of God and God’s love of us.
To paraphrase the late American author and civil rights activist James Baldwin, being the embodiment of Jesus is about growing up, becoming more loving, more honest, and more vulnerable. It’s facing ourselves and what we desire. It’s finding a way to begin again each day. It’s not that we have the right answer, or all the right solutions. It’s that we have found deep meaning in the story of Jesus and have made it our own.
So practically, what does that look like?
Well, first it means that we actively and daily cultivate our relationship to God and to Jesus. It means that if we do not know the story of Jesus well, we take time to read, at the very least, some part of the Gospels on a regular basis. It means that we make a commitment to daily prayer and meditation.
Now I’m not suggesting that we all become monastics, dedicating hours to such practices. But can’t we make a small commitment of 5-10 minutes out of our day on a regular basis? Can’t we make knowing the story of Jesus a more integrated part of our faith and who we understand ourselves to be?
But this call isn’t just about our personal spiritual development. We are also called to other activities if we are to embrace the reality of who we are in the eyes of our Savior.
Just as Jesus did in his own day, we live in a world of radical poverty in which there is a marked difference between those of us who have and those who do not. This is expressed globally, nationally, and locally. If we’re to be the embodiment of Jesus, we can’t sit idly by and passively let this reality continue. We must work actively for economic justice and relief for the poor and the dispossessed. We must do more than engage in acts of charity, but also work on the causes of the poverty we are called to address.
Also, just as Jesus lived in a world of radical violence in which the weak and the innocent were often the victims of those who took power to themselves and brutalized those around them, we too live in a world marked by the sin of violence. We live in a world where children are murdered by lone gunmen and where ethnic minorities fear for their wellbeing simply because of the color of their skin. Like with poverty, we mustn’t simply be passive bystanders. Jesus, through his own non-violence and teaching, resisted such a reality and we too are called to be such a voice in our present reality. If we’re to be the embodiment of Christ, then we’re called to be agents of justice and healing.
Jesus, through his presence and preaching, transformed the lives of those who came within his sphere of influence. He laid the foundations for the kingdom he proclaimed … a commonwealth of peace and justice in which the needs of all are met by all. Now the mantle is laid on us to pick up where he left off … to be that presence and that voice in our world today. As I said earlier, we need not be perfect, we simply need to be faithful. And while we may not transform the whole world in our time, we can make a difference in the lives that come within our reach.
Let us claim our faith. Let us be the embodiment of Jesus in our time and place. Let us be agents of peace and justice. And let us claim the kingdom he proclaimed and see the presence of God flow out into the world.