After the Ascension

This Sunday falls directly after the celebration of the Ascension of Christ last Thursday. We find ourselves liturgically in the in-between time after Christ’s going away and before his sending of the Holy Spirit upon the Church.

The fact that Christ ascended into heaven and left the disciples without his physical and singular presence raises the question: How will God be manifested in the world now? What witness is there of the truth of the Incarnation and the Gospel after Christ has been taken up? The answer is simple, and we see it in our passage today.

In this passage, we hear the prayer of Christ, of Son to the Father. He prays for ‘those who will believe in me…that (through them) the world may believe that you have sent me’.

God is no longer visible to the world as he was when he walked the earth in the person of Jesus. You can no longer visit him, or feel his physical touch, or hear his audible voice…except through those who will believe in him. That is, through the Church, through you and me. We are Jesus’ body on earth now. The task is ours to witness to the world of the reality of those things we believe: that he was born, that he manifested God’s love and wisdom to the world, that he died for all, that he was raised again, that he was taken into heaven. We are God’s representatives to this truth.

The Oneness as a Witness

How will this truth be manifested to the world? Through the oneness of those who believe:

“I ask…for those who believe in me…that they may all be one…so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

The conclusion we draw here is that the oneness of the Church will be a witness to the world. With the implication that division in the Church will impair the Church’s witness. So we had better have a think about this oneness – what it is and how to get it – so that we can more clearly speak of Christ.

What does this Oneness consist of?

Some English translations use the word “unity” here where ours uses “one”. I like “one” better. First of all, it is a direct translation of the actual Greek word “eis”. And, secondly, because it speaks more clearly of what Christ goes on to say.

“Unity” may or may not speak of intimacy, of love, of the dynamism of a shared life.

But “oneness” does. Think of the way we might speak of “oneness” today. How might we use that term? Perhaps the most readily available example is that of a husband and wife who have become “one flesh”, “one body”, almost one person as their lives have been brought together in a radically new way.

How does Christ pray that believers should be one? We can pick out three things, which are all aspects of the same reality:

Firstly, the oneness of Father and Son in their relationship with one another: “…that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us.”

Secondly, a unity of glory: “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one.”

Thirdly, this idea of glory is linked to the love between Father and Son: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

The fathers of the early church wrestled with passages like this and others which appear to speak of a very close identity between Jesus, God the Father and the Holy Spirit. After some time, they eventually formulated the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. This doctrine tells us that there is a oneness in God which is shared by three persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And theologians like St Augustine spoke of Holy Spirit as the “bond of love” between the Father and the Son, that is the way by which the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father.

Doubtless we speak here of a reality that is far beyond our comprehension. And yet the amazing thing is that we called by God to be a manifestation of the oneness of the Holy Trinity here on earth today.

Let me put it this way: the best way of understanding what the Holy Trinity is, is to look at the Church at its highest, as the love of God is manifested between those who believe in Christ.

There are lots of questions that such a statement might raise in our minds. When we say the words “the Church” we often think of bishops releasing statements about political controversies or synods arguing about theological and ethical issues. Without wishing to dismiss any of these things as a complete irrelevance, let’s shift our focus to the real world and to real things. Think of the warmth and love that you have experienced through the Church, through this parish maybe, or others you have attended. Perhaps you’ve not experienced it too much, but you’ve seen it. And, even if you haven’t, I can guarantee you that it is there and that, imperfect though it is, it is unlike anything else in the world.

How do we achieve this Oneness?

I’ve said so far that Christ prays for the oneness of believers. I’ve said that this oneness is a manifestation of God’s love as he is in the Holy Trinity. And I’ve said that the Church can therefore teach the world about who God is through the love of believers.

That’s a lot to take in, but we need to say one more thing about how we might achieve this. To begin, let me say that this is the work of a Christian lifetime. It is not done in an instant and it takes time, commitment, patience, faith. But we ought to be encouraged by the very existence of Christ’s prayer and the fact that through the Holy Spirit we have it recorded for us: the oneness of the Church is something Christ desires and which must be at least partially achievable.

I want to say that there are individual and corporate aspects to this oneness. And I will here use an analogy from football.

Imagine that you are part of a great football team like Barcelona or Bayern Munich or Manchester City. Experts will know that, in recent years, all three of those teams have at one point been overseen by perhaps the greatest manager of the modern age, Pep Guardiola.

Now, as an individual player, how can you bring about the greatest level of oneness in a team managed by a visionary like Pep? There are two ways: firstly, you sit at Pep’s feet and study his ways. You become a follower of Pep. You become his disciple. You hang on his words. You spend as much time as you can with him. Eventually, his philosophy goes so deeply into you that you start to resemble him, not just in your playing but in your way of life.

What’s the second thing? The fact that you are becoming like Pep in this sense connects with the rest of the team, who are (hopefully), all doing a similar thing. If a player is not learning from Pep and doing his own thing this will bring a lack of oneness. It will bring division. The team will not play as well. But, if all of the players are connected to Pep in this way then they will be more united, more connected to one another, and the team will be a manifestation of his footballing philosophy. It will be, in that sense, one.

Forgive me for comparing (even by analogy) Pep Guardiola to the Holy Trinity. But there is something here I hope that is helpful. Individually, we are united to God in Christ and through the means of grace in our Christian lives – through prayer, study of Scripture, meditating either silently or upon God’s Word, through the sacraments, through corporate worship, through fellowship with one another, through lives of obedience and holiness. This starts with you and me, with God’s calling and our response. The Church as a whole can’t do this for us.

But it is through this work of personal transformation that we contribute to the life and oneness of the Church. We are made one with other believers who are on the same journey, undergoing the same process, which is referred to in the theological literature as “sanctification”. That is, becoming holy, becoming set apart for God.

Why can we not do this alone? In the case of Man City it is because they must play as a team because those are the rules of football. But here we might want to give a slightly more theological answer. As I have already said, the way that God is manifested in the world now is through the Church. And God is not a single, solitary unity, alone and unloved until he created people to love and to love him. Rather, God is a dynamic community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in eternal union, oneness and joy. And that is why the Church must be both individual and corporate, both one and many…because that is how God is.

And do we not feel something of this God-like life when we gather together? Sometimes church is hard, of course. We are feeling tired. Or something we are doing doesn’t go well. And so on. But, at its highest, is it not true that we can sense at least something of the presence of God here amongst us in our shared love of one another, in our shared love of Jesus Christ, and in our shared unity of purpose?

Indeed, God is here. This is very gate of heaven. Or, at least, it is as close as we will get until we enter the reality of which this is but a shadow. In the meantime then, let us fulfil the longing of Christ’s heart: that we may be one – that we may be one with God and that we may be one with one another in holiness, purpose, and love.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.