“I have made your Name
known to those whom you gave me from the world.” From the Gospel according to John, chapter 17, verse 6.
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus
Sancti. Amen.
The whole of this chapter, the 17th
chapter of John’s Gospel, records a prayer of Jesus to the Father. It is the
longest recorded prayer of Jesus in the New Testament. This prayer is commonly
called the “high priestly prayer” of Jesus. According to some commentators,
this chapter is the heart of the Gospel; its theme is Jesus as the full
revelation of the Name of God, and of the meaning of the name of God.
We remember God’s revelation of his Name
as “I am who I am” in the third chapter of the book Exodus. God has many names
and titles in the Hebrew Scriptures, but this name, “I AM” is the most
important, because it is the name that God gives himself. God says to Moses,
“Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM’ has sent me to you.” God expands
on this, and says, “the God of Abraham…Isaac…and Jacob has sent me to you.”
This is not rhetorical title inflation, but a fuller revelation of the meaning
of the Name, and Jesus reveals still more of the meaning of the divine Name in
John’s Gospel. “This is my name forever,” says God in Exodus, “and this is my
title for all generations.” In naming himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, God is proclaiming that his relationship with humans is personal; God is
not an abstract, impersonal force, a metaphysical divinity only, but a God who
associates himself with human beings in a personal relationship. God names
others, and he names himself in relationship with them.
In the 43rd chapter of the book
of the prophet Isaiah, God gives himself more names and titles, and says to
Jacob, to Israel, that “I have called you by name, you are mine.” He says “I am
the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” He calls himself Lord,
Redeemer, God, Creator, King. In this chapter he promises restoration and
protection. He promises to be with Israel no matter what, all because he has
called them by name. God and his people are in a very close personal
relationship, as a father is with his family.
Jesus reveals his relationship to the
Father when he says, “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me
from the world.” In other words, the Father has given to Jesus not only Israel,
but the whole human race, in order to make his name, God’s name, known. Later
in the chapter, Jesus says, “protect them in your name that you have given me,
so that they may be one as we are one.” Jesus is himself the name of God; he is
identified with all the names and titles that God has revealed of himself, and
we know Jesus by those names as well. When we call Jesus by name, we are
calling God by name. The names of God are not only words, but are the
Word of God, Jesus himself, who shares the divine nature with God, and who has been with God, from
the beginning. The names of God in Exodus and Isaiah are now the Word of God,
in the person of Jesus himself, the Son of the Father. The full meaning of the
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is now revealed to us. It includes and is more
than the personal relationship between the Father and his people; it is now a
relationship of oneness between the Father and the Son, with whom we are one as
they are one.
Later in the chapter, Jesus says, “I speak
these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in
themselves.” Jesus’s joy in his
relationship with his Father can be ours as well. Jesus the Name of God, the
Word of God, is including us in his very close relationship with the Father.
This joy is available to us. This is beyond mere restoration and protection,
and is a new understanding of what restoration can be. It is made possible by
our knowing the Word of God in the person of Jesus, who reveals himself as the
One who can be named, who can be called upon by name, who is the Name. This
means that the Name of God establishes a relationship with him. It also means
that our existence is connected to his, that the Name, or Names, of God are
completed, so to speak, fulfilled, fully revealed, in our relationship with
him. What God begins when he names himself in Exodus and Isaiah, he completes
when he reveals himself in Jesus, and when he includes us in that revelation.
Jesus says, “They do not belong to the
world, just as I do not belong to the world.” There is more to us than our
everyday experience may suggest. Our everyday experience need not limit our
understanding of our true nature, and of God’s nature as revealed in Jesus. The
Name and Word of God point beyond the world, point to the reality of our deep
relationship, whether we are conscious of it or not, with God through Jesus. And Jesus makes this
reality known, and is giving us the task of making this reality known, when he
says “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”
This is our mission, this is what the high priestly prayer of Jesus leads to,
his sending us as his Father sent him, to make his Name known, and to include
the whole world in him, in a relationship as close as that between the Father
and the Son.
In nomine etc..
No comments:
Post a Comment