In the fall of 2004, Sue and I made our first trip to Asia. We traveled to Taiwan to teach in a ministry training school made up of young people from literally ever corner of the world. And we quickly found ourselves being stirred into a wonderful soup of nationalities, cultures, and ethnicities and adding our voices to a glorious symphony of worship made up of many languages rising before God’s throne. It was a foretaste of heaven. We were captivated by a rich sense of the unity in our diversity made possible by our Redeemer. The experience impacted us deeply and altered the course of our ministry. And I can’t help but reflect on those memories when considering John 11:51-52.
These verses form a pause in the apostle’s narrative where he provided a brief commentary on what he’d just described in the previous two verses. In making the case for the reasonableness of killing Jesus, the high priest had said it would be better that one man should die for the people. So, John stopped to underscore the prophetic significance of that statement. He wanted his readers to understand that even though these words were spoken by an enemy of Christ, the sovereign God was using Caiaphas to declare his redemptive purpose for the coming crucifixion. It would not be merely a dark result of the conspiracy of a religious cabal but the glorious fulfillment of the strategy of his loving grace.
And in addition, John said the redemption secured by the substitutionary sufferings of Jesus would unify all the children of God. And we know from what he later wrote in 1 John 2:2 that his use of that phrase was not only inclusive of Israeli Jews and the Diaspora but of the whole world as well. He was looking ahead to the cross that would become the supreme point of unity for anyone anywhere who would become a child of God through faith in the saving grace of Jesus.
Whatever our background, nationality, skin color, age, gender, politics, language, or occupation, Jesus people are all rooted in the blood-stained soil of Calvary where our redemption was purchased. We share a holy communion through the one who there paid the price for the sin that separated us from himself and from each other. The Lord has made possible and welcomed us into a friction-free and seamless relationship with him that he meant to also characterize the new kind of community he’s empowered us to enjoy with one another.
In fact, this is such a divine priority that among the few prayers of Jesus recorded for us in the New Testament, John 17:21 reveals him petitioning the Father on our behalf saying, “…that they all may be one, as you, father, are in me, and I in you; that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.”
As the world around us tears itself apart in deep schisms of hostile animosity, the church’s Spirit-formed oneness is meant to stand in sharp contrast. Our genuine fellowship is intended to be a beacon illuminating the power of the Gospel, a lighthouse of love pointing the conflict-weary to the shelter of the Prince of Peace. And that example has never been more needed than now.
This moment in history cries out for the testimony of a unified church. Not a theological, ecclesiastical, political, cultural, or racial conformity, but a spiritual solidarity, a holy harmony that flows from the only thing that truly matters – our love for Jesus.
May each of us who call him Savior invite the scrutiny of his Spirit to reveal any ways our attitudes or actions have contributed to divisiveness within the Body of Christ. Then, if needed, let’s be quick to repent so that what was said of the early believers by those who observed their sincere affection may be true of us as well: “See how they love one another!”