Psalm 102; Jer. 20:7-11; 1 Cor. 10:14-17, 11:27-32; John 17:1-26
Jeremiah pours out his complaint about his lot in life because of his call. He accuses the Lord of essentially seducing him to the work by overpromising yet the Lord clearly told Jeremiah that his words would be rejected by the people and the leaders. The fulfillment of his prophecy was long delayed and the nation was prospering so why did he continue to call out violence and destruction? The people had begun to mock the prophet with his own words of doom and destruction as the judgment of God was not seen. Jeremiah’s complaint is essentially that his life is harder than expected because he doesn’t see the fulfillment of the Lord’s words yet he continues the work as though under compulsion. Have you ever worked for the Lord for a long season and not seen the result you expected? It can be disheartening yet if the call is real, there is no choice but to continue the work.
Jesus prays that the Father will glorify Him with the glory He had with the Father before the world began. He also prays as one who is about to leave the world and return to the Father and prays for those who will remain behind that they would experience the oneness that He experiences with the Father. Did the disciples have any idea what Jesus meant by being glorified? The glorification of Jesus was in what looks like abasement in the eyes of the world. He is praying for all that will come in the next few days, the trial, the beatings, the mocking crowds and ultimately the crucifixion but also the resurrection and ascension culminating in the scene before the throne in Revelation 5 when all of heaven worships Him. Whatever we may experience here by way of hardship will be redeemed in all of eternity. Is our commitment in life to bringing glory to the Lord?
What does it mean to eat the bread and drink the wine? That is a puzzle over which the church has labored for ages. Paul says that it is truly important and we should not do such things lightly. He urges them in the strongest terms to not take communion lightly as the ingestion of the elements without “discerning the body.” We must come to communion through the confession and repentance of sins if we are not to eat and drink to our judgment. Clean vessels are required for such holy things. In our tradition we don’t believe that the bread and wine are literally the body and blood of Jesus but we also believe something more is at work than a bare symbol, we believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. To believe something less would require me to deny the plain sense of the passage. We join with Him in His suffering and death for our sins when we receive the elements, we recall His glorification and we share in taking up our cross to follow on the road of suffering for the sake of the Gospel. We too are under compulsion.
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward to Thy glorious rest above!
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