Month: November 2024

King Jesus brings Life.

Christ the King Sunday
John 5:19-29

King Charles recently visited Australia. A few protested, most were happy about the visit. No one was too worried. There would be castles sieged, no jousts were held in his honor, no one was sentenced to imprisonment in the tower. The reality is that modern kings are very different to kings in the ancient world. Modern kings serve mostly a symbolic function. They open and close parliaments, reassure the people in times of difficulty, and support charitable projects. Kings in Jesus’ had no parliaments. Their advisors did not get a vote. The ruled by absolute authority. And no one every asked them what their favourite charity was. The king, quite simply, wielded absolute power within his realm. A good king was much loved by the people, a bad king much feared.

All these images of what it means to be a king swirl about in our heads when we hear that this Sunday, the last Sunday of the church year, is Christ the King Sunday.

Just was does it mean that Christ is King? And why do we finish the Church year on this note?

In Jesus’ time many wanted to proclaim Jesus king. The crowds on the shore of lake Galilee wanted to do this after he fed them. But he slipped away from them. He has not come to be that kind of king.

Pilate asked Jesus bluntly if he were a king. Jesus did not deny it. In fact, he admits as much, but also tells Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world. He was not the kind of king Pilate was thinking of.

Jesus is indeed a king. And at the end of the church year, when we traditionally focus on that which is to come, we remember that Jesus is king and will come again to rule on earth and in heaven.

But Jesus is no ordinary king. He is king of kings. He is the king to whom all earthly rulers are subject. Jesus is king not just of a particular land or people. Jesus is king of all creation. And he is not just king in the past, bu tin the present and future. There are no limits to his reign; there are no borders to his kingdom.

In today’s text we learn some things about Jesus and what kind of king he is.

Jesus makes three statements in today’s text that begin, ‘Very truly,’ or in more traditional language, ‘Verily, verily.’ Or in Aramaic/Hebrew ‘Amen. Amen.’ It was Jesus’ way of saying, ‘Listen closely, I am going to say something very important.’ And in each one of them there is a focus on the life that Jesus brings us as king.

The first of these ‘Very truly’ statements is about who Jesus is in relation to the Father. Jesus is not just a representative of the Father. He is the Son. Jesus is not king because he has won an election. He is king because he is the Son. And what the Father is, the Son is, and what the Father does, the Son does.

But what work does the Father do?

  • The Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father and all those who follow him. (verse 20)
  • The Father gives life, the Son gives life (verse 21)
  • The Father who is judge of all, give the role of judge to the Son (verse 22)
  • Just as the Father is honoured, so the Son is to be honoured (verse 23)

This is who Jesus is as king. He is loved by the Father and loves, he is given all authority to sit in judgement and rule, and he is honoured just as the Father is honoured. These truths given under Jesus’ first ‘very truly’ statement in this text are at the heart of Jesus’ kingdom and at the heart of Christian belief. Under king Jesus there is a unity of divine love, glory and life.

But the main point Jesus makes is that he does what the Father does. And the Father raises people from the dead and gives life. And in the same way, the Son also give life.

In the second ‘Very truly’ statement (in verse 24) Jesus says what he does for those who follow him. Jesus says that those who hear his word and believe in him will be rewarded. This sounds very much like an earthly king, who promised those who will follow him land, or freedom, or riches, or high office. But Jesus promises none of these things. He promised something much bigger. He promises eternal life. So once more, the theme of this second ‘Very truly’ statement is life.

Jesus says that the one who believes in him ‘has eternal life, does not come under judgment, and has passed from life to death.’  It looks like Jesus is promising us three things. But he has promised us one thing, in three different ways. In typical Hebrew fashion, he has said the same thing, but in different ways. If we have eternal life, we will not come under judgement, or condemnation. And if we are not condemned, we have eternal life. And if we have eternal life, and are not subject to condemnation, then we have already passed from death to life, even though we have not yet experienced physical death.

So, Jesus as king promises those who follow him life. We have it by virtue of being gifted eternal life. We have it by virtue of not being subject to judgement and condemnation, which leads to death. And we have it by virtue of already passing from life to death.

In quick succession we have had two ‘truly, truly’ statements. Now comes yet a third. ‘Very truly I tell you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear him will live.’

Once more, the theme is life.

Jesus is not only the king. And he is not only the king who promises life. He is the king of the future who delivers on his promise. In this passage Jesus talks about the end of days and the resurrection of the dead. And he tells us that while this time is yet to come, it is also already here. In the kingdom of king Jesus what he has promised is already a reality. Jesus takes us into his own divine time. Our time, in this present life, becomes something different in in Jesus, it becomes the time of God. And the time of God, the time of King Jesus, extends to all times. Jesus gives life in the future, but also already now.

And here is the big reveal. Jesus can do this because just as the Father has life in himself, so does Jesus have life in himself (verse 26). That means that he can give us life because he is lord and giver of life. Jesus and the Father are one. Only God has life in himself. And only the one who is life can give life.

Jesus indeed in no ordinary king. He is king of kings and lord of lords. He is Creator and giver of life. He is the long-promised king of Hebrew prophecy. He is the present king who rules in a kingdom not of this world. And he is the future king who will give life everlasting to all who hear and believe him and will establish his unending kingdom on earth as well as in heaven.

Even so, come, king Jesus.

Amen.

Pastor Mark Worthing.
Port Macquarie

Who needs enemies?

Pentecost 27
John 15:18 – 16:4

When I was 10 years old, at the start of Year five, a new boy moved to our school and was put in my class. I knew his name but had not met him or talked to him. The second week of school he confronted me on the playground. ‘I hate you,’ he said. ‘You are my enemy and you’d better watch your back.’

Well, to say the least I was taken aback and a little upset. And the strangest thing was that I’d never met him before or spoken with him. He knew nothing about me.

I went home and told my mum what had happened. She was certain that I must have insulted him somehow … said or did something. But there was nothing. ‘You have to ask him,’ she said. ‘Then you can apologise for whatever he thinks you did.’

‘So I asked him the next day if I had said or done something to make him upset.’

‘I just hate you,’ he said, ‘and I’m gonna get you.’ Then he walked off.

Apparently he was of the belief that he needed an enemy. Someone he could hate and blame all his problems on. And I was the one. There was no reason to it. And no way to convince him that I was not his enemy.

It was my first glimpse into real hatred. It is not rational and cannot be reasoned with.

Sadly, we have experienced all too many examples of hatred in recent months that many of us have found hard to fathom. In the recent US election campaign we found extreme elements on both sides convinced that the other was evil. My own family in the US is considering whether they should cancel Thanksgiving meal because of the animosity on both sides. And then there is the centuries old hatred spewing out of the Middle East in which both sides are convinced that there is one version of events, one version of history, and one side that is justified in hating the other. Many of those who have sought to mediate an end to hostilities have given up in frustration as neither side is willing to negotiate.

John in his Gospel, is much more interested in love than hatred. He talks of the love of the Father for the son, of the Son for the Father, and of the Father and the Son for those who believe in the Son. John speaks of the love that those who follow Jesus have for one another. And in the text immediately preceding today’s text we hear of the greatest love that anyone can have, for Jesus to lay down his life for others. And he tells his disciples that he has given them a new commandment, that they should love one another.

Jesus says all these things as part of his farewell speech to his disciples at the Last Supper. He said these things to prepare them and to comfort them.

But then the tone shifts dramatically. In today’s text we find a departure from this recurring theme of love in John’s Gospel. In today’s text we find Jesus warning his disciples that they will be hated, just as Jesus himself is hated. Jesus warns his disciples that a time is coming when people will hate them and seek to kill them. And they will do this simply because they bear the name of Jesus. ‘People hate me,’ Jesus said, ‘because they do not know the Father. And thus they also hate the Father, and will hate you.’

But why would Jesus be hated? After all, he proclaimed the love of God and the forgiveness of sins. He healed the sick. He stood up for the poor and oppressed. Why would anyone hate Jesus?

Jesus says that it was to fulfil the words of scripture, ‘They hated me without cause.’  He is referring to Psalm 69:4.

‘More in number than the hairs of my head

Are those who hate me without cause;

Many are those who would destroy me,

My enemies who accuse me falsely.

What I did not steal, must I now restore?’

And here we find a great truth about hatred. It is like the hatred I experienced from the boy in Year Five, or the hatred we often see behind those from different political camps or ethnic groups. In its truest and purest form, hate has no rational cause. We might seek some reason for it. We might be convinced that if only we could find the reason for the hatred we could bring it to an end. But true hate is beyond reason. That is the point of this Psalm of David that Jesus refers to. Hatred has no cause. It adheres to no reason.

We often use the word ‘hate’ loosely. We hate a certain movie or song. We hate days that are too cold or too hot. ‘I hate the weather,’ or ‘I hate it when the garbage collection is late’ we say casually. But when we encounter genuine hatred we find that it is something very different to dislike.

Those consumed by hatred have been so blinded by hate that they are willing to believe anything bad they hear about ‘the other’ and reject anything they hear that might seem positive.

That is the sad nature of hatred.

And no one experienced it more fully or unjustly than Jesus.

And on the eve of his arrest he reminds the disciples that as his followers they can expect the same hatred.

But it is not them. It is nothing personal. And it defies all reason. It is simply because they bear the name of Jesus, who also was hated without reason.

But why does Jesus tell his disciples this?

Again, just as was the case in his preceding words, when he talked about the coming of the Holy Spirit and about love, Jesus tells his disciples these things to bring them comfort.

Not exactly the words of comfort anyone would like to hear. People will hate you for no good reason and will seek to kill you. How does that bring comfort, we might wonder?

Jesus tells his disciples, and all of us who bear his name, that there will be those who will hate us simply for being followers of Jesus. But when this happens we are to remember that Jesus was hated too. We are to remember that that following Jesus will cost something.

And most importantly, we are to remember that we are not alone. Jesus has sent his Spirit to be with us. When we feel completely alone, hated for no reason, The Spirit is with us and will give us the strength and words to speak.

Jesus calls all who follow him to love each other, just as he has loved us. But he does not promise that everyone will love us. He goes out of his way, in fact, to warn us that we will at times experience quite the opposite, just for because we follow him.

But Jesus wants us to know that when this happens, it is a reminder that we are his. If we were not his and he did not love us, then we would not be hated for following him. And he wants us also to know that we are not alone. That he has sent his Spirit to stand with us and guide us and comfort us in such times.

But still, we ask, there must be some reason for such hatred. There must be some cause that can be addressed.

In fact, even though Jesus tells us that he (and by extension we) are hated without cause, he does provide an explanation. ‘They hate me,’ he says, ‘and they hate you because they do not know the Father. They do not know the one who sent me’ (verses 15:21 and 16:3).

And here is not only a clue as to the nature and cause of this hatred, but also an indication of how we might address it.

Hatred originates not in any reason or logic, but our of lack of knowledge. The first persecutors of the early followers of Jesus were the Jewish authorities. They thought they were doing a righteous service to God (16:20). But in fact, they do not know God.

One of these, you may recall, was a young hothead named Saul, from Tarsus. He stopped persecuting the followers of Jesus only when he himself met Jesus – when he learned to know who God truly was. In fact, he not only stopped persecuting Christians, but he changed his name to Paul and became one of the greatest advocates for the cause of Jesus.

So we will indeed encounter people who hate Jesus and hate those of us who follow him for no clear reason. They might see us as their enemy, even. But that does not make them our enemy. It does not mean that we, in turn, should hate them.

Because knowledge can bring an end to hatred. And a knowledge of Jesus, that is, knowing not just who Jesus is, but knowing Jesus a friend, dissolves all hatred.

So it when confronted by senseless hatred. Especially when it is directed at us simply for following Jesus, pray for that person or those people. Speak the words that the Spirit gives us to tell them who Jesus is. That is what Jesus asks us to do in this text.

They may not listen. But then again, neither did Saul of Tarsus, and neither did most of us – until we did. Until we ourselves came to know Jesus and his love, we too were caught up in a world of unreasoned hate.

But in Jesus, we have become bound up in his world of transforming love that overcomes all hatreds.

Amen.

Pastor Mark Worthing.
Port Macquarie.

John 3:16, The Sequel

Pentecost 26
John 3:22-36  

In the first half of this chapter we had the story of Nicodemus visiting Jesus at night. That account comes to its highpoint with the famous words in verse 16, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.’ This verse has been adopted by the American evangelical movement as their theme verse and it is hard to go to a view a sporting event in the US in the past several decades without seeing a few placards saying ‘John 3:16’, not to mention the bumper stickers. I am not sure how many people who see these placards go to their phones and look up John 3:16, but I did read some years ago that this verse in now the most famous and best known in the Bible.

But what does it mean? We often take it is isolation from its context. After this verse John gives us a small commentary on the meaning of this passage in verses 17-21 in which he talks about the Son coming into the world not to bring condemnation but salvation, and to be the light of the world. Most people looking to understand this key passage stop reading there. But the remainder of the chapter belongs with the first and they are meant to be read together. It provides a parallel story to that of Nicodemus, but this time the character who appears alongside of Jesus is John the Baptist.

Many might argue that verses 22-36 are an entirely different theme to the first half of the chapter. Indeed, in the Gospels a change of geographical location generally indicates a change of theme. But not in this case. There are too many deliberate links to the themes of verse 1-16 to believe anything other than that John saw the account of John the Baptist as a continuation of several key themes from the first half of the chapter. We do not have time to go into these verses in depth, but some of the ‘echoes’ from verses 1-16 should be noted.
The themes of baptism, water (v. 23) and Spirit (v. 34) continue. The concept of ‘from above’ is found in the ‘from heaven’ of verse 27 and the ‘from above’ of verse 31. (same word, άνωθεν, as in v. 3). In verse 32 he testifies to what he has seen personally but no one hears his testimony. This parallels v. 11 – as well as the earthly and heavenly things. Verses 28-30 pickup strongly the Messianic theme of the first half of the chapter. V. 36 concludes the section with a contrast again between the two ways or destinies of eternal life versus wrath. The second half of the chapter, therefore, ends on the very same note as the first.
The contrast with John the Baptist further clarifies who Jesus is. Verse 35, which also speaks of agape-love, provides an interesting parallel with 3:16. The ‘all things’ parallels the ‘world’ of v. 16. John uses the two terms as synonyms in much the same way that the Psalms do this. And the ‘whoever believes’ of verse 36 clearly parallels the second part of verse 16. The intriguing difference is now that Father loves the Son and gives him all things (the world). But this can only occur in light of verse 16 where learn that the world is the object of God’s love, and the Son is given for the world.
So the two stories, laid out side by side, would look something like this (see bulletin insert):

1-10 Nicodemus speaks with Jesus ↔ 22-30 John Bapt speaks about
Jesus
5,6 Water and Spirit ↔ 22-33 Water and Spirit

11 Testifies of what he has seen in ↔ 32 testifies of what he has seen
heaven but no one believes him in heaven but not one
believes him
12 earthly/heavenly things contrasted ↔ 31 earthly and heavenly things
contrasted
13 Son comes from above ↔ 31 Son comes from above

John 3:16 ↔ John 3:35,36
God loves world → gives Son The Father loves Son → gives him all
Whoever believes has eternal life ↔ Whoever believes has eternal life

In the ancient Semitic world repetition, including concentric and chiastic structures, were frequently used to emphasise or stress certain key points. Occasionally several key phrases or ideas recur in a parallel passage (similar to the kind of parallelisms found in Hebrew poetry like the Psalms). These draw the reader’s attention. Then there often occurs a key verse which parallels a previous key passage but turns around some key concept to particularly emphasise a point. The modern reader often misses these literary and interpretative cues. John, a Jew writing in Greek, would have been quite familiar with this style. If one views John 17-21 as a commentary or interlude by the Evangelist that highlights the importance and meaning of verse 16, then there are some important parallels between verse 1-16 and verse 22-36 that cannot simply be dismissed as coincidence.

The parallel ending to each of these two stories cannot be missed. John 3:35,36 is a deliberate parallel to 3:16. These two passages explain one another. Only the God who loves his Son can give him for the world, and only the God who loves the world can give all things (the world) to his Son. Both the Son and the world are loved by God the Father, and both are given to/for the other. Belief, or faith, on this foundation, is the way to eternal life.

Not only does the Father give the Son to the world, but he gives the world to the Son. God’s love for the world is his motivation for giving his Son, and his love for the Son is his motivation for giving him the world. These verses taken together form a literary device called a chiasm, in which the two main points are inverted to explain and interpret one another.
It is called a chaism because of the Greek letter Chi, which looks like an ‘X’. If you wrote out the first half of John 3:16, the underneath it wrote out John 3:35 and then drew a line connecting Son in each verse, and world (or all things) in each verse, the two intersecting lines would form an ‘X’ or a Greek letter Chi.

God loves world → gives it his Son (John 3:16)

 

God loves Son → gives him the world (John 3:35)

So we have here a literary device (a chiasm) inside a literary device, the telling of parallel stories. And all this serves to highlight the key point. It is a point that culminated in verse 35 and 36, not verse 16.

But we tend to stop with John 3:16, getting only half of the point. The full story is only seen when we take John 3:35 and 36 into account. God loves both the Son and the world. And God gives them to one another.

Imagine a Jewish wedding ceremony in the which the Rabbi takes the bride and groom’s hands and joins them together. That is what is happening here. And it is not hard to imagine such a scene when just such an image has been brought up a few lines earlier in verse 29. So the image of a wedding ceremony has already been planted in the reader’s mind. Now we have this mutual giving in love of the Son to the world and the world to the Son. It would be a strange and incomplete ceremony in which only the bride was given to the groom, or only the groom to the bride.

So that most famous of all Bible verses, John 3:16, has a sequel: John 35 and 36. And this second occurrence of the teaching, in the complex literary structure that John employs here, is meant to be the culmination of these two stories. Yet it continues to be overlooked by readers who stop at John 3:16 thinking we have heard all we need to hear. And John 3:16 is indeed a very powerful passage. It is hard not to stop when we have read it an meditate on its meaning. God loved the world (that is to say, us) so much that he gave his Son that we might have life everlasting.

But this isn’t the end of the story. It not the end of the message of this text. For the next, parallel story, as we have seen, ends with almost the exact same words. Only this time, God so loved his Son that he gives him the world. The Son is ours. He is God’s gift to us. We learn that from John 3:16. But we are also his. We belong to Jesus because the Father has given us to him in love. That is what we learn in John 3:35.

The end result of being given to and for one another, that is, Son to the world and world to the Son, is the same. Both verses conclude with eh promise of eternal life for all who believe.

It is unlikely that signs saying ‘John 3:35’ will begin popping up at US sporting events. But next time you see someone pointing to John 3:16, remember that it conveys only one half of this wonderful message. For the second half we must keep reading. God so loved the world that he gave his Son that all who believe will have eternal life. This is most certainly true.

But there is more.

It is equally true that ‘God so loved the Son that he gave him everything (that is, the world), that all who believe in him may have eternal life.’

We have Jesus and Jesus has us. Both are held together by the bonds of God’s love. And that, indeed, is good news.

Amen.

Pastor Mark Worthing.
Port Macquarie.

Divine Entanglement

All Saints
John 17:20-26 

In another life I studied quantum theory at the University of Regensburg in Germany. It is a much more interesting field of study than many might imagine. But I have to admit, when I turned my attention to theology, I didn’t think I would be finding much use for quantum theory again. Then I read today’s text.

But before we get to that, I need to explain a couple of basic points about quantum mechanics for those of you who may not have been paying close attention in Year 10 science.

Firstly, quantum mechanics looks at the interactions of particles at the sub-atomic level, much as classical physics looks at the laws that govern the interaction of matter on the large-scale level.

As we know, everything material that exists, like air, water, stars, trees and us, are made up of distinctive combinations of atoms. Water, for instance, is simply a collection of molecules made by combining two hydrogen atoms with one oxygen atom. H2O. That seems pretty straight forward.

But what takes place within these various atoms is something quite remarkable. Electrons orbit around a nucleus that composed of protons and neutrons. And these subatomic particles are again formed by even smaller fundamental particles such as leptons, quarks and bosons. But the really interesting thing is that matter seems to relate and act differently at the subatomic level than at the large-scale level.

Just a few points that you may recall from those long-gone days in science class. Sub-atomic particles appear to act as both a particle and a wave. This means we need to look at them as being both at the same time to understand how they work.

And here is another interesting point. These particles/waves are connected in ways that are hard for us to fathom. For instance, Albert Einstein (who you have all heard of) together with Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen (who you have probably never heard of) put together the famous EPR thought experiment in 1935 seeking to show that quantum theory really didn’t make sense. But they appear to accidently have gotten it right. Some decades later laboratory experiments not possible in the 1930s showed that what they proposed was actually the case. Basically, it was shown that particles that are split remain somehow connected and in communication even at great distances. So if a particle has a total spin of 0 and it is split, and one half of the particle is measured or made to have a ½ right spin, the other half of the particle, even if it is kms away or even on the other side of the galaxy, will instantly have a ½ left spin to balance it out. And this information between particles is transferred faster than the speed of light. Which according to classical physics is not possible. And yet it happens. Einstein was not happy about this and called it ‘spooky action at a distance’ which is not a technical scientific term, but it is easy to remember.

Another famous scientist of the time, Erwin Schrödinger (famous for his Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment) looked at the whole phenomenon of how subatomic particles are both wave and particle at the same time, and are somehow connected even after being split, even if they are half a universe away. He called the whole scenario quantum entanglement. And that became the technical term.

So this is the point. At the most fundamental level of reality, everything is completely entangled. That’s the way God made our universe. There are connections and actions that defy our understanding of time and distance, and of wave and particle. Everything is so inter-connected to everything else at the foundational sub-atomic level that traditional categories of space and time cannot explain the depth of these connections. And this, in a nutshell, is what is called quantum entanglement.

Now, back to today’s Gospel reading.

This is the only substantial prayer of Jesus that we have apart from the Lord’s prayer, which is more of a template. In this prayer we have a glimpse into the heart and deepest concerns of Jesus as he was preparing for the cross.

The first thing we notice in today’s text, which is the final part of his prayer, is that Jesus is praying for us.  ‘I ask not only on behalf of these here, but also on behalf of those who are yet to believe in me through their word.’ Think about that. Jesus prays for all those who are yet to believe. That’s us.

That alone, if nothing else sticks in your mind from this text, should bring comfort and peace. Jesus prayed for us – for you and me today.

But what exactly does he pray for? He prays that we might all be one. And in his prayer he reveals something of what this means. He does this by revealing who he is in relation to the Father and who he is in relation to us.

Jesus does this through the repetition of key words and ideas. It is something we find often in John’s Gospel. The key themes repeated in the next few verses are unity, love and glory. Like elsewhere in John’s Gospel, we find that these words and concepts are not simply repeated, but recur in every changing configurations that continue to fill out these key concepts.

For instance, in the case of the theme of unity or oneness we begin with Jesus’ wish that we might all be one. The foundation of this idea we then find is that Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in Jesus and that all of us who believe in Jesus are in this unity of Father and Son. Likewise, Jesus says, that he is also in us, and the Father is in him. And in this way Jesus says we are becoming ‘completely one’ so the world will see and know that the Father loves each of us just as he loves Jesus.

So the love that flows from Father to Son and Son to Father is the same love that flows to us, and between us. And we learn that this has been the case since before the physical world was founded.

And this famous prayer of Jesus finished not with an ‘amen,’ but with these words: ‘I made known your name to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’

And that is the end of the prayer. Jesus concludes with the desire that the love of the Father which flows into the Son, with whom the Father is one, will also flow into us, and that Jesus will also be in us just as we are in him.

So now, and in the future, and from before time began, love and unity flow between Father and Son, and between the Son and us, and between us and the Father, and between all of us. And the glory of the Father is also the glory of the Son. And in following Jesus we reflect this glory back to the Father and we experience and see this glory ourselves.

Now, if that all sounds impossibly complex and interconnected, that is exactly the point.

This text sounds a lot like the situation of quantum entanglement that underlies all physical reality.

Perhaps we might call this divine entanglement. It is description of the complex interconnectedness which underlies all spiritual reality.

It makes sense that a God who creates a physical world so completely and mysteriously inter-connected or entangled would also produce a spiritual reality no less complex and interconnected.

But you might say, ‘This is all too complicated. How can we ever understand what Jesus is describing in this prayer? ‘

I would like to suggest that that is not the point.

Let’s think again about the world of quantum physics. Some time ago at a conference on the relationship between science and faith, I was asked how to tell if someone actually understood quantum theory, as there were (and still are) so many competing and contradictory explanations and understandings about what actually takes place at the quantum level.

My answer was that I could not tell them how to tell if someone understood quantum theory, but I could tell them how to tell if someone did not. This got their attention.

The simple test, I said, was that anyone who says they understand how the quantum world works, has no idea what they are talking about.

In the field of quantum mechanics, it is well known that basic principles, like uncertainty, action at a distance, wave particle duality, and entanglement work in practical application. But it is also well-known that no one really understands how or why these principles work.

Similarly, on the spiritual level, we do not know just how it is that Jesus and the Father and the Spirit are one. Nor do we fully understand just how we are one with Jesus and with each other. Or how he is in us and we are in him. Or how love and unity flow in every possible direction between Father, Son, and believers, or how all this is both still being ‘made known’ and has at the same time been true since before the foundation of the world.

But we know that it works. We know that if we think of the relationship of Father and Son in this way, and of our relationship with both Jesus and Father in this way, and the relationship that we have in unity and love also toward one another, that it works.

Understanding how it works is not a prerequisite for it working.

But if such things are too complex for us to understand, or at least fully understand, then why does Jeus bring it up? Why does Jesus pray in this way? And why does John record this complex prayer?

The reason is because John’s Gospel is about knowing who Jesus is as God, and about who we are in Jesus. It is about knowing what it means to be one with Jesus, who is also one with the Father. John’s Gospel is about the mutual circle of love between Father and Son, and between us and Jesus, and among one another.

So Jesus, in this prayer, is describing the reality that we are completely entangled in divine love and unity and glory. We may not understand the complexities of how it works any more than we are able to understand the complexities of the quantum world.

But we know that it works.

We know that we are safely entangled in the love of Jesus. We are bound up in unity with him and with the Father and with the Spirit. We are entangled and inextricably connected to all those who are also entangled in Christ’s love.

This divine entanglement that begins and concludes in the person of Jesus and in our relationship to him is not a mystery to be solved. It is a truth to take comfort in.

In Jesus, God has entangled us in his love, and in is very being. And we do not need to fully understand how this works to know that there is no better place to be than fully embrace and entangled in God’s love.

Amen.

Pastor Mark Worthing.
Port Macquarie.