RCL Year C Easter 7
Acts 16:16-34, Psalm 97, Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, and 20-21, Saint John 17:20-26
The world today presents to us several reasons to complain. We could complain about food and gas prices. Or we could complain about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We could even complain about one political party. Or we could complain about the other political party. Perhaps even both deserve our complaint. We could go down a long list that perhaps would include the general societal regression that is everywhere around us.
But for Christians, for true believers, little room for complaint in truth presents itself to us. What God presents to us in Jesus Christ is something we rarely speak about. God presents to us in Jesus Christ is Perfection. Jesus Christ, the Sinless One, was born among us to perfect the world, to perfect us, and to perfect everything that is.
I believe, with all my heart, that God is perfecting all these things and that, in the end, they will all be perfected.
The Gospel today presents Jesus offering his High Priestly Prayer, which is his prayer for the perfection of the world, for the perfection of us, and for the perfection of everything that is.
Jesus prays, “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”[1]
That is perfection itself. If Jesus’ prayer is answered, and of course it will be, Jesus will be in us, the Father will be in him, and we all will be completely one. This is a timeless and eternal perfection. It will only be realized in eternity. But this perfection will be realized. God’s will will be done.
We can complain about God’s will being done as though this were food and gas prices, or a very imperfect political party, or an incomprehensible invasion. But God’s will should not be confused with these mundane things. God’s will touches things of much greater consequence.
Our lives gain meaning and purpose when we attach ourselves to these consequential things. When we decide that we really do believe in God and in God’s will and in its eventuality, then we live a new and different life, because we have put those mundane things in their rightful place. We have put them where they belong. But of vast importance, we shall have put ourselves where we belong—in the hands of the True and Living God.
[1] Saint John 17:22-23.
hs3rd 