Commemoration of the Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council. Octoechos Tone 3; Our Venerable Father Euthymius the Younger, the Holy Venerable-Martyr Lucian, Priest of Great Antioch (312).
Hebrews 13:7-16; John 17:1-13.
Read John 17:1-13
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
Have you ever experienced a time in which you felt like an outsider? The need to belong is a fundamental part of our human nature. We need relationship. We can’t live without it, but we can’t give it to ourselves. We are made to be dependent on others for it.
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus embraces in prayer his closest relationships, including us.
In his time, Jesus glorified the Father and was glorified in the Apostles, “having accomplished the work which thou gavest me to do.” But this amazing fellowship is not ended just because “the hour has come” and “I am coming to thee.”
Jesus had glory in the past, in the presence of the Father “before the world was made.” And he will have that same glory in the future, continuing to glorify the Father. Jesus anchors his relationship with his Apostles in that eternal past and eternal future, praying “Holy Father, keep them…that they may be one, even as we are one.” You don’t become more of a participant in the relationships we were made for than that!
But where are we? We come later in this chapter:
“I pray also for those who believe in me through their word, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, with me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world.”
As we receive Jesus in communion, gathered around the teaching of the Apostles, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, glorifying the Father, we are being made one, not just with each other, but with God. That is how “the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.”
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