For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page, which includes Rossing's current Living by the Word column as well as past magazine and blog content. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century.
Each year the Gospel reading for the Seventh Sunday of Easter is taken from Jesus’ great prayer in John 17, the conclusion of his farewell discourse. Jesus invites us into what Raymond Brown describes as a "heavenly family conversation" between himself and God.
This prayer, like Jesus’ other prayers (John 11:41-42 and 12:27-28), is meant to be overheard by us. It witnesses to Jesus’ return to God (his “glorification”) and to his deep love for his followers. Everything he has he now gives to us, as he is returning back to God. While it has become fashionable to excerpt John 17:21 as an ecumenical program exhorting denominational unity, Jesus’ words are more mystical than programmatic. In the logic of comparison (kathos, “just as,” vv. 14, 16, 18, 21, 22, 23) so central to this entire prayer, Jesus proclaims in v. 23 that God will now love us with the very same love God had for Jesus.
