Let light shine out of darkness

 ‘And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.’ (John 17:3)

John 17:1-11 (Year A: Seventh Sunday of Easter 28^th May 2017)

Three things stand out in this time between Ascension and Pentecost:

• Unity
• Prayer
• Mission

What were the disciples up to between Ascension and Pentecost? Some of them were probably still afraid or confused.  Whatever way they felt, they knew that they had to wait. More than that, they knew that they had to be strong, together – like the city of Manchester this week.  ‘That they may be one as we are one’ (Jn 17:11).  In the darker moments in the history of a community, being together in a deeply prayer-ful way is important.  This is no time for set formulae or rehashed platitudes. It is a time to rest in prayerful waiting – with others. There we will find our strength for the mission that surely awaits us. We cannot presume what mission awaits us as a community or me as an individual member of the Body. In the running narrative of John chapters 14 through to 17, we know that Jesus the Prince of Peace, Saviour and Son of the Living God has a plan for each one of us. It is a plan for our well-being, happiness and peace and not for endless despair, suffering and torment. For the prophet Jeremiah declares (29:11)

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

When we have been touched by the Holy Spirit we will catch a faint intuition of God’s glory revealed in the life of our blessed, and sometimes broken, communities. 

Blessed, blest and broken like Aleppo or Manchester today (or Belfast a generation ago). In the midst of evil and torment, the glory of a compassionate God is not extinguished.

An inexpressible urge to give Glory will arise in our hearts.  And, a need to glorify is already deeply embedded in each of us.  From primitive beginnings human beings created images and glorified a higher being or reality. In more recent times some extraordinary examples of the human need for glorifying have presented at rallies and other manifestations. From Nuremberg to Red Square, a figurehead or an ideology has been glorified. Nature has always abhorred a vacuum and always will.

The prayer ‘Glory be to the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit …’ is said by Christians over and over again. What does it mean to glorify in this way? Does a god or Our God feel a need to be glorified?  The dense discourses in the Gospel of John – especially from the 14^th chapter to the 17^th – are packed with references to Glory, the Spirit, the Father-Son relationship as well as all the other Johannine themes of reciprocal love, unity, faith, light, joy and peace. But, glory is something that cuts across human reality. What we hear in the opening of the 17^th chapter is a powerful affirmation of the unique privilege of being human. A glory ascribed to God, alone, is realised in us. Writing in the second century St Irenaeus said

‘The glory of God is a living human person; and the life of a human person consists in beholding God’. Some translate this simply as ‘The glory of God is humanity full alive’.

Whow! The glory of God is ordinary human beings like you and me fully alive. Not just alive, but fully alive. Better than any prayer. It is prayer to be so. Let light shine out of darkness.  As Paul wrote (2 Cor 4:6):

For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

We will not be cowered. Some among us will sing and dance again at another time. To God be the glory in Manchester, Aleppo, Dublin and everywhere else.