“You dancin?”
James Cathcart
May 31, 2017
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John 17:1-11
Jesus Prays to Be Glorified
17 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:
“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you gloryon earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
Jesus Prays for His Disciples
6 “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8 For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.
This passage in John foreshadows the Holy Spirit descending at Pentecost. Jesus says, “And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”
Jesus is calling us to be together, in the way that he and God is together. Both overlapping and separate, the same body but with distinct parts. In a dance, partners move as one - but they are still separate. Early Christians used the Greek word perichoresis (‘dancing aboot’) to try and express what the Trinity is - distinct elements with different functions, but moving together fluidly. A ballet is not a piece of music, or a movement, or a story. It is music, movement, and story. Without all three it isn’t ballet.
I used to worry that as a Christian I might lose my identity, that Jesus would want me to become an idealised, bland version of me. I worried that heaven would be a place without friction and personality. A place with a lot of soft rock guitar and Shloer and quiche… If the Trinity was a dance, I was a wallflower.
As I have continued my Christian journey I have become less and less sure what heaven will be like and more and more comfortable with not knowing. Other things have become more sure - like the fact that God is deeply invested in human individuality and creativity and that the Christian life is about growing into yourself not leaving yourself behind. I have become more ‘me’ the longer I have been a Christian.
Joining the dance - doing ‘Christianity’ - takes confidence and practice, but it can also suddenly sweep you away, in a catchy melody that leads you out and before you know it you are in the middle of the dance floor and you are cutting the rug and throwing shapes with the best of them.
Dear God,
May the Word of Life shape my relationships
with those I work with
and live with
and dance with.
Amen.
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