NOTES for Joh 17:20-26

In today's passage from the Gospel of John, there is a very important idea for a Christian: the idea of unity, one of the foundations of the Church's understanding and experience. Moreover, in the Gospel it appears as what Jesus desired for His disciples almost more than anything else in the world.

The question is what kind of unity is meant by the words: "...that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You..." and what follows. They are usually interpreted this way: Jesus called for everyone to hold the same doctrinal formulas and belong to one all-embracing church organization. Yet, as we know, formalism and over-organization kill, while living relationships give life.

Rather, this is not so much about a church structure uniting everyone under its jurisdiction, although such a structure often flows naturally from unity of faith and life in the Christian community; after all, everyone in our world has to take on certain legal obligations in order to coexist fully with other people. Much more plausibly, Jesus was inviting the disciples to seek inner unity, not horizontally but vertically: like His unity with the Father, each person should have unity with the Father and the Son, who come to the one who keeps Their word and "make Their home" in his heart and in his life. In fact, only through a living mystical bond with the Father and with the Word who reveals Him is the inner Kingdom built, spiritualizing human existence at its deepest depths. Then all everyday affairs and church projects receive a firm foundation in the hearts of people attuned to the hearts of the Three: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit...

Everything in this world is mortal: countries, peoples, and church structures, all of which can collapse before the eyes of a single generation, as happened in the tragic 1920s and 1930s in the Soviet Union. But what remains unchanged is that unity, that personal communion with God, which in any historical conditions and life circumstances remains the eternally flowing spring of Christian prayer and action.

Before us is the Last Supper, the farewell discourse with the disciples. Today the Church offers us what would seem to be only seven verses from several long chapters in which Jesus speaks one last time with the future apostles. There is so much that must be said before His “departure”—they must be prepared for the principal trial of their lives... That is precisely why these verses are so full—Jesus cannot allow Himself to waste time either on superfluous words or on lengthy explanations. The disciples are in any case unable to understand everything He is saying now, but later the Spirit will come and remind them of everything (see John 14:26). He will remind them of this prayer of the Teacher, of His ardent desire for the unity of His disciples and of all those who will believe through their testimony. And the words “that they may become perfectly one” mean far more than shared ideologies, aspirations, and the like—they concern perfect unity, uniting every sphere of our lives. Jesus also prays that every person may know that the Father has loved them as He has loved the Son (see John 17:23). For it is precisely this knowledge that can transform the world, uniting all people in the unity for which our Lord waits.

Jesus prays for His disciples as those who will continue His work in the world while remaining one with Him Himself. He does not pray for them as followers in a religious or ideological sense. Nor as those who carry on His work in the way that the companions of the founder of a religious movement carry on their founder's work. Jesus prays for His disciples as inhabitants of His Kingdom who will bring that Kingdom into the world just as He Himself brought it into the world. But one can bring it only by being an inhabitant of the Kingdom oneself. By living its life, and therefore the life of its King. It is precisely this life for His disciples that Jesus asks of His heavenly Father. As their Teacher, He brought them into this life, but now they will have to live it on their own. Of course, He will not leave them without support. But a new stage of the journey is now beginning for the disciples.

Previously, they could share in the life of Christ, in the life of the Kingdom, simply by being in fellowship with their Teacher. Directly, face to face. As long as there was fellowship, there was life. Now, however, the situation was changing. Of course, it is still possible to meet Christ face to face today. Many have met Him since His resurrection and ascension — Paul was the first, but by no means the last. But now much more will depend on the person themselves. On their spiritual condition. On their own life and its spiritual richness.

Previously, Jesus alone bore the fullness of the Kingdom within Himself. Now His disciples will bring it into the world together with Him. And not only those twelve who were with Him at the Last Supper, but others as well. Those who will accept Him through the testimony of the twelve. The Kingdom will begin to spread throughout the world. This, in fact, is the Christian mission. For Christianity is not some new religion, but precisely this life of the Kingdom. It is not within human power to make someone a Christian, but it is within human power to help them meet Christ.

To show them the Kingdom and its life. After that, each person will decide for themselves whether they need all this or not. And if they decide that they do, and then consistently follow through on that decision, the presence of the Kingdom in the world will increase a little more. And then more and more. Until a certain measure of the fullness of the Kingdom's presence has thus been revealed to the world. Then Christ's return in glory will become possible. And the transfiguration of the world, which at the end of time becomes a new earth beneath a new heaven.

We may say that we should count ourselves fortunate, because we can “hear” how our God prayed and because He prayed for us. As we read His prayer closely, we see something like concentric circles: Jesus; His disciples, the apostles for whom He prays at the beginning of John 17; and we, the third circle, who believe in Him through the apostles' word (see John 17:20). Why are we only in the third circle, we might ask? That seems rather distant! Yet at the same time hardly any of us would claim the apostles' role and cross... But let us look from the other side: He prays for us too; we too are very important to Him, and before His death He remembers each of us. Moreover, what does Jesus pray for? For unity—not just any unity, but the fullness found only between Him and the Father (see John 17:21)! Earlier He prays for unity for the disciples, and now for us. Then it becomes clear that each of us is, for Him, an apostle called to proclaim the Good News and to “unite” the world in love.

On Good Friday, on a Good Friday that is not distant from us but closer than ever, although we were not yet alive then, Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh spoke these words from the pulpit. '<...> The Mother stood by the Cross; Her Son, betrayed, reviled, cast out, beaten, torn, tormented, was dying on the Cross. And She was dying with Him… Many, surely, looked at Christ; many, surely, felt shame and fear and did not look into His Mother's face. And now we turn to Her, saying: Mother, I am guilty—among others, yes—of Your Son's death; I am guilty—intercede for me. Save us through Your prayer, through Your protection, because if You forgive, no one will condemn or destroy us… But if You do not forgive, Your word will be stronger than any word spoken in our defense… <...> Let us stand before the judgment of our conscience, awakened by Her grief, and bring a repentant, contrite heart. Let us bring Christ our prayer that He may give us strength to awaken, come to our senses, come alive, become human, make our life deep and broad, capable of holding the Lord's love and presence. And with this love let us go out into life to create life, to fashion and build a world, deep and spacious, that would be like a garment clothing the Lord's presence, shining with all the light, all the joy of paradise. This is our calling; this is what we must accomplish by breaking ourselves, giving ourselves, dying if need be—and it is needed!—because to love is to die to oneself, to cease valuing oneself and instead value the other, whether God or a human being; to live for another, laying aside concern for oneself. Let us die as much as we can, let us strive with all our strength to die, so that we may live by love and live for God and for others.' So close to us is that Friday on which the Metropolitan spoke these words, as are all the Good Fridays that have been and will be. 'I am guilty.' I was not alive then, but I am guilty. We cannot regard this day as a symbolic commemoration of events that once took place. No. For the Body and Blood of which we partake are not a symbol, but the very Body and the very Blood. Here I am, and I am guilty here and now. It is frightening when people begin to greet one another for Easter in advance—this really happens, and happens often! Today I know nothing of Easter; I know only one thing: whether woman or man, I am guilty, for He died, and I did nothing to prevent it.

By gathering people together and building them into the Church, the Lord does not merely oppose the human disunity that arises from sin. It is not simply that all of us, like Cain, are unable to be together. We are different, and the reason for this is the Creator's will, not our sin. Overcoming disunity has nothing to do with overcoming each person's individuality. Today, in a passage from Christ's final discourse with His disciples, we read that, in the words of the apostle Paul, ‘God has provided something better for us’. He lets us participate in the mystery of the Trinity's unity, a unity that neither absorbs persons nor effaces their individuality. A unity in which life given to another does not disappear, but grows. The unity in which the Father and the Son are one.

This unity is impossible for this world, which is why Christ says, ‘that they may be one in Us’. And behind these words lies something no less astonishing: He wants us to be in Them — in the Father and the Son. After the Ascension, in the Trinity as we see It in Rublev's icon, One of the Three is the God-man, and therefore also human! And in Jesus Christ, in His Flesh and Blood, there is a place for each of us not simply beside God's throne, but in Them Themselves! This, it turns out, is what the Eastern Fathers of the Church mean when they say that salvation consists in the deification of the human being.

"At every service we pray 'for the union of all' in the Church of the Living God. What unity are we praying for, and why is it necessary specifically to pray for it?

We pray because only God can restore the unity that man destroyed: its criteria are too high, its measures are not human but God's. Such unity is a mystery by nature, a miracle in essence. Christian unity cannot be defined in the categories of fellowship or community. It is not merely "togetherness"; it is "unity": "That they may be one, as We are one", the Lord prayed to the Father in His final prayer.

This is a glorious and awe-filled calling and pattern, because within it lies a sovereign command for the whole human race: to attain likeness to the Holy Trinity, to be Its image and Its revelation. This is a promise, but also a responsibility. And we easily forget both. The experience of this glorious and trembling unity is the very being, the essence of the Church, her nature: the Church is this very unity; the Church is one and indivisible, even though the Christian world is broken into pieces by our sins. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, the city bound together as one... (see Ps. 121)."

(Anthony, Metropolitan of Sourozh: "...and for the union of all, let us pray to the Lord")

Right now, in most of the civilized world, people talk constantly about unity. They call this unity by different names: someone says simply and plainly that "together we are strong," someone fights for or against globalization, someone prays for the unity of the Church, and someone reflects on the deep human longing for life with others and for "communion." Some only reflect on it, while others even try to build something - creating organizations, unions, and councils. In short, the topic matters.

But if you tried to gather all the people involved in this work and ask them to agree on what this desired community should be, a real commotion would begin. And all because, despite the common desire, each person still pulls in his own direction. Each person sees unity in his own way and assigns places according to his own ideas. And it may be that people will never be able to agree on the form.

Because true unity is what Jesus asks the Father to give us. It is a unity that is impossible to reach by human means: the unity of the Trinity. We are not even able to let others come as close to us as the Persons of the Trinity are close and one, let alone remain constantly in such "communion," where we are both different and one. Yet this is exactly what God expects from us. And He is the One who can make it real. We simply have to truly want it.

The Lord Jesus says several times in John's Gospel that He came so that the people who hear His message, His disciples, might believe and have the life that He brought from the Father. Therefore, in His final prayer before His arrest, He prays for the disciples and their followers, not for the world, not for those who did not receive Him.

At the same time, however, He also prays for the world, indirectly, that the world may believe in Him when it sees the unity of the disciples. In this way, He expects from those who have believed in Him the continuation of His work: to contribute to the salvation and enlivening of the whole world, not by replacing Christ, but by manifesting His presence in their unity, which bears witness that they already live divine life, imitating the inimitable unity of the Father and the Son.

The prayer Jesus offers for His disciples sums up everything said during the Last Supper. It is usually called the prayer for unity, and one can undoubtedly agree with this. Yet it concerns not only outward unity. Jesus again asks the Father to preserve between Him and His disciples the same union that He has with the Father (vv. 21-23). Apparently no testimony is possible without such unity; without it the world will not believe that the apostles truly were sent into the world by the Savior Himself.

Yet bearing witness to the Kingdom and revealing the Kingdom to the world are precisely the chief task of those who are sent. Addressing the Father, Jesus in a sense hands over to the apostles the mission the Father entrusted to Him, while entrusting the apostles themselves to the Father. He says: I have given the life of the Kingdom that You gave Me to everyone who wished to receive it; I have accomplished everything You entrusted to Me (vv. 1-5). I revealed Myself, You, and Your Kingdom to those whom You sent Me, and they accepted everything (vv. 6-8). And now, Jesus says, I am leaving while they remain, and I pray for them, for those who belong to You (vv. 9-11).

Such a request was entirely natural, for the apostles were now becoming witnesses to the Kingdom about which Jesus had previously spoken to the world, and the apostolic community was to become the nucleus of the Church. Previously Jesus Himself had kept His disciples safe in a world hostile to them. Now, as He goes to the Father, He asks the Father to help the apostles preserve the joy of the Kingdom that they knew during the Savior's earthly ministry (vv. 12-13). This does not mean removing the apostles from the world to some other, special reality. The Kingdom had to be revealed here, not somewhere on another planet or in another dimension (vv. 14-16). But to reveal it, the apostolic community had to be sanctified by receiving the fullness of God's living revelation, which the Savior Himself embodied (v. 17). Only then could the apostles become witnesses to the Kingdom and their community the nucleus of the Church, whose very purpose would be to preserve the Kingdom in our still not fully transformed world and bear witness to it. This nucleus would grow, and the Church would expand, including everyone who sought the Kingdom and eternal life (vv. 18-21).