Father, Make Us One! Maundy Thursday 2013 Pastor Robert Hein

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1 John 17:20-28 Father, Make Us One! Maundy Thursday 2013 Pastor Robert Hein Dear Fellow Members of the Body of Christ, When you think of the famous prayer which Jesus offered on Maundy Thursday evening, which one comes to mind? Most people think of Jesus prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, in which he poured out his heart to his heavenly Father saying, Father, if it is possible, take this cup from me. Yet, not my will, but your will be done! Tonight however, we are going to focus on another famous prayer which Jesus offered on Maundy Thursday evening, and that is his High Priestly Prayer. It has three parts to it, as we heard in our three Scripture lessons tonight. First Jesus prayed for himself. Secondly Jesus prayed for his disciples, and finally Jesus prayed for all those who would believe in him because of the message the disciples would proclaim. Isn t that amazing? Think of it! On Maundy Thursday evening, just as Jesus was heading out to the Garden of Gethsemane where he would soon be arrested, Jesus was thinking about you. He was praying for you, and looking out for your spiritual welfare. He was asking God to bless you and to make you one, one with him and one with your heavenly Father. Listen again to that other prayer which Jesus prayed on Maundy Thursday evening, Father, my prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me, and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you sent me, that they may be one as we are one. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Today, through our study of God s Word, we will echo Jesus words as we too fervently pray Father, make us one! The pattern for our unity is the perfect unity which exists between God the Father and his dear Son, Jesus Christ. As true God, Jesus is one in essence and power and majesty with the Father, and with the Holy Spirit. Jesus was not created by God, as the Jehovah Witnesses falsely teach, nor is he inferior to his heavenly Father in any way. This is the mystery of the Holy Trinity; we worship one God in three equal, but separate persons. It

2 is hard for our human reason to comprehend these deep spiritual truths, but they are clearly taught in Holy Scripture. The Athanasian Creed puts it this way, For each person The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is distinct, but the deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory and coeternal in majesty And within this Trinity none comes before or after, none is greater or inferior, but all three persons are coequal and coeternal, so that in every way, as stated before, all three persons are to be worshiped as one God, and one God worshiped as three persons. During his earthly ministry it was also quite evident that Jesus was one with his heavenly Father. You could say that Jesus and his Father were always on the same page. Jesus came to this earth on a rescue mission, as God s chosen servant, to fulfill his saving plan. Even though Jesus is equal with the Father, he made himself completely obedient to his Father s will. He did everything his Father asked of him, everything the Old Testament foretold the Messiah would do. He became obedient to the law, keeping it perfectly in our place. He became subject to temptation, resisting every attack Satan threw at him. Then Jesus humbly and obediently walked to the cross to suffer and die as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Why? Because that is the mission his heavenly Father placed before him. This was the cup his Father asked him to drink. Again and again, Jesus expressed his unwavering desire to fulfill his Father s plan no matter what the cost or the consequence to him personally. Jesus once said to his disciples, My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to finish his work! And in the first portion of his High Priestly Prayer, Jesus prayed, Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. God the Father often expressed his complete unity with Jesus as well. At his baptism God the Father proudly declared, This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. At the end of Jesus ministry, on the Mount of Transfiguration, the Father again voiced his complete approval of Jesus and his saving work, for he he said, This is my Son, whom I have chosen. Listen to him! Yes, Jesus and his heavenly Father were always on the same page. They were one in purpose, in essence and in majesty.

3 You and I can t ever achieve the perfect unity of the Holy Trinity. But that unity is to be the pattern upon which our unity is to be built. Jesus said, Father, I pray for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them be one, Father, just as you are in me, and I am in you. In the beginning God created Adam and Eve to enjoy perfect harmony and unity with him. They were one. But when Adam and Eve misused their free will to sin, they destroyed that perfect unity. Now sin separated them from God and earned for them God s anger and eternal punishment. This dreadful separation was passed down to all of their descendants including you and me today. We are not born one with God. Rather we are born at odds with God, dead in sin, and by nature, objects of God s wrath. Jesus Christ came into this world to repair this broken relationship to make us one with God again. Jesus accomplished this redemptive work by meeting God s righteous standards as our substitute and then offering life on the cross to make atonement for our sins. The Apostle Paul tells us, God reconciled the world to himself in Christ, no longer counting men s sins against them. How richly blessed we are to know Jesus as our Savior. In him we enjoy the forgiveness of our sins, peace with God, freedom from the guilt and the curse of sin, and a rightful place in God s family. No longer are we strangers and aliens. Now we are fellowship citizens with God s people and members of God s own household. Yes, in Christ, we become one, one with our Father in heaven, and one with our dear Savior Jesus, now, and for all eternity! When we become one with God, we also then become one with each other. We are all fellow members of the body of Christ, connected to one another as brothers and sisters. The Apostle Paul encourages, Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit just as you were called to one hope when you were called-one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Families care about one another. Families treat each other with respect. Families work together in love and unity. That s how God wants us to think about our brothers

4 and sisters in Christ. God has gathered us together here at Good Shepherd as a church family to carry out a common purpose. Together we carry out our ministry plan. We pool our efforts and our offerings to make the most of the opportunities God places before us. We worship together, we pray together. We support Christian education and mission work together and we serve one another in Christian love. Some of the names of the people we pray for in church you may not recognize, but still you care for them, because they are family, fellow members with you in the body of Christ. As our hymn verse puts it, Blest be the tie that binds, our hearts in Christian love. The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above. Before our Father s throne we pour our ardent prayers. Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one, our comforts and our cares. CW 494 We consider every baby baptized in our church to be a member of our family and so, we deeply care about their spiritual welfare. Even if we don t have children in the school, we are eager to assist parents in providing a Christian education for their children, because those are our kids too. Right now as a congregation we subsidize 73% of the cost of education for each child attending Good Shepherd Lutheran School. We are also eager to train and send missionaries to proclaim the Gospel to precious souls all around the world, because we recognize that we are one with these people, even though we have never met them. Yes, while we may never meet these Christians until we reach heaven, we rejoice that are one. In Christ, we are members of the same family, and co-heirs of the gracious gift of eternal life. Some people struggle with how to enjoy a close personal relationship with God. They wonder, How can I have a relationship with a God who I never see, who never appears to me visibly or talks with me audibly? How can I be connected to this invisible awesome God, who lives in unapproachable light? How can I be one with the Lord of the universe? Well, God comes near to us and works in our hearts through the means of grace, the Gospel in word and sacraments. In Holy Baptism God the Father adopts us into his own dear family of believers. He becomes our dear Father and we become his dear children.

5 Jesus washes away all our sins and covers us with his own perfect robe of righteousness. The Holy Spirit creates faith in our hearts and makes our bodies his very own temple. Yes, in Holy Baptism, God actually come to live in us. We become one with him as members of his own family. In the Word God speaks to us directly and personally, comforting us, forgiving us, and guiding our path through life. The Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see and appreciate the awesome blessings Jesus won for us on the cross, and he empowers us to live Godpleasing lives to his glory. In Holy Communion, we also enjoy a personal connection with our Savior. Jesus comes to us, giving us his true body and blood, together with the bread and wine, to wash away our sins, to assure us of his unfailing love, and to empower us to live as his faithful disciples. The Apostle Paul writes, Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf. 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 Think of the oneness we enjoy in the Lord s Supper. There is a participation, a oneness between the bread and Christ s body and the wine and Christ s blood. In a miraculous way, we receive both. There is a oneness between us and our Savior, as we enjoy an intimate fellowship with him. We certainly don t deserve this, because our sins make us unworthy to stand in God s presence. But Jesus doesn t drive us away. Instead he invites us to come and eat, to dine with him. He makes it possible for us to be one with him, because his precious blood has washed away all our sins. And in Holy Communion, we also enjoy a oneness with each other. For 2,000 years the church has practiced close communion. That means that all who come forward to receive Holy Communion are close. We are united in what we believe and teach from the Bible. We are one with Christ, and one with each other. What a blessed gift Christ offers us in Holy Communion, a gift we will want to eagerly receive every time it is offered! Of course, the devil hates this unity which we enjoy with God and with our fellow believers. He couldn t stop Jesus from completing his saving work. He couldn t prevent

6 the Bible from being written. So now he seeks to distort the truth and divide God s people by introducing false teaching. He wants to pull us away from Christ and his Word and put up walls of strife and ill will between Christians. That s why Jesus prayed for us on Maundy Thursday evening. He said, I pray for those who will believe in me through the apostle s message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me, and I in you. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. The devil seeks to deceive us and divide us, and distort the truth through false teachings. God s antidote to the devil s schemes is the word of truth, the Gospel of our salvation. True unity will never come from comprising the truth for the sake of outward unions, as the ecumenical movement today is promoting. No true unity comes when we reject false teaching and the sinful philosophies of this world, and hold firmly to the truths of Scripture as they are presented to us. That s why we are a confessional Lutheran Church. That s why we care about correct doctrine. That s why we take a stand against false teaching. That s why we practice church fellowship and separate ourselves from false teachers. True unity is enjoyed when we follow God s Word as a lamp for our feet and reject every wrong path. As Jesus himself put it, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free! What wondrous love Jesus reveals to us in his high priestly prayer. The night before he died, we wasn t thinking about himself. No, he was thinking about us. He was praying for you and me. He was asking his heavenly Father to bless us and to make us one, one with him, and one with each other. Let this be our Maundy Thursday prayer as well. Heavenly Father, make us one! Keep us closely connected to you through your Word and sacraments all the days of our lives. Knock down the walls which threaten to divide us so we may enjoy complete unity with you and with our brothers and sisters in Christ. May God grant us this for Jesus sake. Amen.