As Jesus offers these prayer requests up to the Father, he asks for something that might seem to us to be nothing short of a miracle. He asks that we, his followers… yes, that’s us… the disciples of the disciples of the disciples through the millennia… that we would be so united that the world would see our unity as a sign pointing to the reality that Jesus was sent from God. Jesus goes so far as to pray that we might become “perfectly one.” He didn’t just pray that we would be more united than others, or that we would think kindly of each other, or that we would share a room for worship once a week, or that we would pray for other Christians once in a while. No, he prayed that we would be “PERFECTLY one.”
The Greek word that is used here is a great one. It is the word, teteleiōmenoi. This word is related to the word, telos, which means “complete.” However, it is a verb in a very unique Greek tense that implies a past action in the past which has ongoing ramifications for the future. The past action was, “I [Jesus was] in them, and you [the Father was] in me.” What Jesus is saying is that because of this past action of their complete unity, the ramifications should be that we can be (or maybe should be) completely united. It was the Father’s unity with Jesus that he had with his original disciples that we are to now have with each other!
Now, I have to admit that this seems like it may just be too much to believe. In today’s world, with all the divisiveness in our culture that has made its way into the church, it would be nothing short of miraculous for Christians to have even a fraction of the oneness that Jesus had with his disciples. But Jesus seems to believe that it is possible.
However, here’s the key. Unity isn’t just going to happen to us. It is going to be something that each one of us works on individually. Then churches are going to need to work on it together. Then communities of churches need to work on it together even more. This was a priority to Jesus, so maybe it should be a priority to us. Then maybe, the world will know that the Father sent Jesus and that He loves the world the way that the Father loved Jesus.
Josh Rose
Discipleship Pastor