Do you find elections interesting? There seems to be an ongoing ritual as we exalt with the winners and behave as if the world has truly changed and will never be the same again, despite the fact only one third of people gave the new Government their first preference. Indeed we were saying these things about the previous winner of the last election! How the glory quickly fades.
One common feature of victory speeches is a plea for unity and a promise to govern for all of the nation by the newly elected leader, after the divisiveness of the campaign. This is at a time when as Chris Ulmann has commented on Channel 9 there has been a ‘balkanisation’ of the media and the electorate, due in part to a 2 year concerted character attack on the Prime Minister during the various natural disasters faced by Australia (and the world).
This has echoes of Jesus’ prayer, at the last supper, about the future church - about us in John 17:20-26. He prays for unity and glory, but these are very different to what we saw on election night. As Debbie Blue has commented, Jesus' glory in this passage doesn’t shine, it bleeds! The glory he was referring to was not an election victory but his death on the cross. What he did was for the love of us.
The unity he prayed for was that we be bound together in love: as the Father and the Son are one so we are bound together through the Spirit with them. As we allow Jesus to dwell in us, so we dwell together with all those who do likewise. Through the glory of Jesus on the cross the living God is making his home in us - his followers.
So we are able to reach out into the world, like branches of the vine grafted onto Jesus, so we might feed the lambs and tend the sheep as Peter was instructed to.
This is a different way of being human. One person who reminds me of this sort of person is Eric Liddell who you may recall from the film Chariots of Fire. Eric was a champion Scottish sprinter who competed in the 1924 Olympics. Although favourite for the 100 metres he withdrew because the final was scheduled for a sunday, a day he wished to devote to the Lord. He entered the 400 metre final despite his times being more modest. He won the final, which he treated as an all out sprint, in a world record time: a time that stood for 12 years.
Following shortly after the Olympics and completing his science degree he went to China, where he was born, to work as a missionary with people in poor communities. During a rare visit to England some 10 years later he was asked if he ever regretted his decision to leave behind the fame and glory of athletics. HIs response was "It's natural for a chap to think over all that sometimes, but I'm glad I'm at the work I'm engaged in now. A fellow's life counts for far more at this than the other." (Wikipedia)
Liddell stayed in China when the Japanese invaded and worked in various internment camps until his death from brain cancer on 21 February 1945. Eric Liddell died on February 21, 1945. A few months earlier, prime minister Winston Churchill obtained the liberation of some of the prisoners, and the famous athlete should have been one of them, but he gave up his place to a pregnant prisoner. His last words are reputed to have been "It's complete surrender", in reference to how he had given his life to God.
Jesus prayed for his future church that the world may know they are Christians by their/our love. What better example of this could there have been than Eric LIddell?(attached is a photo of his monument in Weixian)