March 27: “That They May Be One”
♫ Music:
Day 39 - Saturday, March 27
Title: “THAT THEY MAY BE ONE”
Scripture: John 17:20-26
“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. “O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
Poetry:
Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and
plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
THE PATTERN
John 17 is a candidate for the most radical passage in Scripture. That God loves us, that he created all things, that he dwelt among us…all this is too good to be true. But it doesn’t go far enough—into God’s heart and purpose for creation. That purpose boggles the mind, defying our categories, blowing the creaturely circuit-breaker. Creation is not enough. Fellowship and relationship are not enough. That we may be one as God is one, and not just like God, but in God: “that they also may be in us”—that is the goal. But it isn’t just a matter of unity: we are given the very glory of God, the glory God gave to Jesus to share with us.
Who is God? “Hear o Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6). God is one—a reality which includes but far exceeds a simple claim to monotheism. God is one as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one in nature, one in relationality, one in purpose. He is one, and invites us to be one, not simply as the church, not simply in ourselves as fully integrated beings free from the multiplicity and duplicity of sin, but one with him and one in him.
Who is God? God is the God of glory. When his glory fills the tabernacle, Moses is no longer able to enter it (Ex. 40), and his glory he gives to no other, nor his praise to carved idols (Is. 42)—but in Jesus he shares this glory, brings us into this glory. In Christ, Moses is free to abide in the tabernacle, awash in the glory of God.
Why did God become man? Not simply to resolve our problems, not simply to undo the blight and plight of sin. God became man in order to bless us with himself, to make us like himself, to share his character, qualities, and very self with creation, that we may be one and glorious as he is one and glorious, that we may be holy as he is holy, and love as he loves, be just as he is just—that creation may be awash in the character of God. This, I believe, is one of the most radical passages in Scripture because it breaks the barrier between creature and Creator, not where we seize the fruit to be like God (Gen. 3:5), but where God climbs the tree, that he might make us like him—that the pattern of the cross, alive with the character of God (this, I think, is the spirit of Parsons’ painting), may saturate and shape creation, making us ever more like our maker and re-maker.
Prayer:
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
We want to be one as you are one,
Forgive our division and fragmentation
We want to share in your glory,
Take from us our shame and cowardice
We want to love as you love,
Not simply to lust, desire and consume,
We want to embrace the pattern of the cross,
To be awash in the pattern of your life.
Adam Johnson
Associate Professor of Theology
Torrey Honors College
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork:
Cruciform Vision
Jonathan Parsons
2011
Oil on linen
Commissioned by the Dean and Chapter of Guildford Cathedral
Guildford Cathedral
Guildford, Surrey, England
Painted on linen, this oil painting depicts bright interwoven lines with one central yellow cross held in place by a surrounding grid structure. For Parsons, the central yellow cross represents death and life, and its interconnectivity throughout all of life's structures and systems. The cross that has signified death by the shedding of Christ’s sacrificial blood now brings new life and truth by impacting and transforming every human endeavor, culture, institution, government, and relationship of humanity. The almost three-dimensional quality in the overlapping horizontal and vertical lines, and multiple cruciform shape become more apparent the longer you contemplate the work.
https://www.artandchristianity.org/jonathan-parsons-cruciform-vision
About the Artist:
Jonathan Parsons (b. 1970) is a British artist known for the diversity of his artistic practice, which includes installation, sculpture, found objects, drawing, painting and fabrication. He was selected for the British Art Show 5 (2000) and was one of the youngest artists to be included in the notorious Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts (1997), which toured to Berlin and New York. He co-curated Seeing Round Corners for Turner Contemporary, Margate (2016), which attracted more than 150,000 visitors. He studied at Goldsmith’s College and West Surrey College of Art and Design. He lives and works in Guildford and Farnham. Parson’s work investigates visual meaning by pulling apart obvious signifiers such as flags, grids, maps, and graffiti marks, through a largely process-driven oeuvre.
http://www.jonathanparsons.com/Welcome.html
https://www.artuk.org/discover/artworks/i-love-the-world-simple-cubic-array-28987
About the Music:
“Friendship Dance” from the album Created For Worship
Lyrics:
Come and dance before the One
Who shed his blood
He gave his life to join our hands
And complete His circle dance
His love so pure
A gift to man
He gave his life to join our hands
And complete His circle dance
His love so pure
A gift to man
About the Lyricist/Composer:
Jonathan Maracle is the founder and a singer/songwriter of Broken Walls, a Christian Native American band based in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory in Ontario, Canada. Broken Walls was conceived in 1995 by Maracle, a member of the Mohawk tribe, while he was attending a conference called the Sacred Assembly.
http://brokenwalls.com/
About the Performers:
Broken Walls is a Christian Native American band that travels extensively around the world, communicating a message of restoration, reconciliation, dignity, and self-respect. This message is communicated uniquely through music, songs, dance, and storytelling of Native American/First Nations heritage. Often starting their concerts with the Mohawk water drum, Broken Walls performs on a variety of indigenous instruments such as the Mohawk wind flute or the large buffalo hide pow wow drum, eventually graduating to a full contemporary music band. Even while performing as a full band, one can hear the ancient vocals, beats, and sounds of their native heritage. Broken Walls has traveled to such places as Australia, Austria, China, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, Peru, Switzerland, and extensively across North America.
http://brokenwalls.com/
https://pregnancyhelpnews.com/maynes-brokenwalls#:~:text=We%20are%20gathered%20to%20hear,up%20on%20a%20Mohawk%20reservation.
https://americanindianrepublic.com/walls-of-bitterness-why-indigenous-christian-worship-is-essential/#:~:text=Broken%20Walls%20frontman%20Jonathan%20Maracle,Christ%20through%20my%20cultural%20heritage.
About the Poet:
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) is regarded as one of the Victorian era’s greatest poets. He was raised in a prosperous and artistic family. He attended Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied the Classics. In 1867 he entered a Jesuit monastery near London. At that time, he vowed to “write no more...unless it were by the wish of my superiors.” Hopkins burned all of the poetry he had previously written and would not write poems again until 1875. He spent nine years in training at various Jesuit houses throughout England. He was ordained in 1877, and for the next seven years carried out his duties of teaching and preaching in London, Oxford, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Stonyhurst. In 1875, Hopkins, deeply moved by a newspaper account of a German ship, the Deutschland, wrecked during a storm at the mouth of the Thames River, began to write again. Although his poems were never published during his lifetime, his friend, poet Robert Bridges, edited a volume of Hopkins’s works entitled Poems that first appeared in 1918.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gerard-manley-hopkins
About the Devotion Author:
Adam Johnson
Associate Professor of Theology
Torrey Honors College
Biola University
Adam Johnson is a theologian and a professor for the Torrey Honors College who focuses on the doctrine of the atonement, exploring the many ways in which the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ affect the reconciliation of all things to God. His most recent book is: The Reconciling Wisdom of God: Reframing the Doctrine of the Atonement. He and his wife, Katrina, have been married nineteen years and have three sons. They love camping and exploring America’s National Parks.