Easter 7 The Sunday after the Ascension

Easter 7 the Sunday after Ascension Day
That they all may be one.

Our Lord Jesus Christ has many titles and two names.

Jesus holds the title of Christ. It is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew title “Messiah”. It means “anointed.” Jesus Christ means Jesus the anointed.
Jesus also holds such titles as King, Lord, Teacher, High Priest, Healer, God with us, logos and many others.

Jesus is the name the archangel Gabriel revealed to Holy Mother Mary. The name “Jesus” means “savior”. It is the descriptive name which defines the reason and purpose for Jesus’ life on earth.
Jesus has another name. It is far older and far more profound. Three times in Jesus’ life His Heavenly Father audibly spoke and revealed this other name. It is the name: “The Beloved”. In Greek it is the word “ o agapetos”. It is the name that reveals the transcendent reality of who Jesus really is.

As Jesus prays his high priestly prayer he manifests this reality.

Before the world came into existence the Father loved the Son and named him “The Beloved”. The Father did not create the Son in a moment of time. The Son eternally proceeds from the Father. The One God is a community of Infinite and Eternal Love. Jesus is the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father. The Holy Spirit is the Infinite love that binds the Father and the Son together as one God in three persons.

In this last portion of the high priestly prayer that we heard read this morning, Jesus prays for us. He prays for those who will believe on him without ever having seen him. He prays for those who believe based on the eye witness accounts of the apostles. And, he prays that we all may be one.

Jesus prays: Heavenly Father, grant that those who believe in me may experience the same unity of love that I experience with you. The unity is the love, steadfast, holy, unconditional, infinite and eternal love.

There are three areas of unity in Jesus’ prayer. He prays that we may be one with the Father. He prays that we may be one with each other. And, he prays that we might be one within ourselves.
As we enter into those three areas of unity Jesus tells us there will be a result. The result will be that the world, the lost and broken souls who have separated from God, will come to receive the love Jesus brings.

In this prayer, Jesus shows us that there is a relationship between our choice to immerse ourselves in Divine love and our obedience to his command to offer the gift of salvation to all people everywhere. The promise is that through our obedience to immerse ourselves in Divine Love others will come to understand and to choose that love for themselves.

The Beloved came into this world to bring Divine Love to a separated, lost and broken species. Jesus did not come into the world to tell us how we can reach God. Jesus came into the world as God reaching out to us. We do not find God. God finds us. And, God finds us by sending the Beloved to seek us out.

Jesus reminds us that there is no condemnation in God. God just doesn’t have love. God is love. The invitation to salvation is the invitation to be found by the Divine Love of God in Jesus Christ.
The great challenge to salvation is the human will to power that in every way demands: my will be done. That will to power molds and shapes a soul to reject Divine Love. That will to power forms a soul in the three categories of rebellion: pride, self will and fear.

The separated soul living from the place of rebellion creates religion or philosophy in a vain effort to tell God how God must accept it and reward it with heaven. It works under the assumption that the doors to heaven are shut and it must somehow bribe or demand they be opened.

Jesus brings to us a very different message. Jesus brings the Good News that the doors of Heaven are wide open. The Holy Spirit stands at those doors and announces to the entire world: Come. The saints of the Church Triumphant stand at those doors and proclaim to all people every where: Come!

Jesus not only tells us but demonstrates for us that Heaven is available to all and denied to none. Jesus teaches that we can only come to Heaven through love, with love and in love. We cannot come with a single condition or demand. Jesus reveals to us that Heaven is nothing more and nothing less than a personal relationship with the co-eternal beloved, Jesus Christ.
Since Heaven is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ Heaven is available to everyone as a gift. The love of God in Jesus Christ is unconditional and all inclusive. Jesus loves all human beings. He prayed for those who killed him. And, he prayed for us who would receive his love through the eye witness accounts of his apostles.

Since Heaven is the gift of a new and personal relationship with Jesus Christ we begin to experience the joys of heaven here and now in this life. The joys begin at baptism. The joys find greater reality as we immerse ourselves into the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the blessed sacrament of the altar.

For those who have chosen to enter into that new life of unconditional love death is simply a transition into a greater experience of something we already value and desire.
It is only as we make a real choice to immerse our minds, our hearts our wills into the unconditional love of Jesus Christ that we find the fulfillment of this His high priestly prayer for us.

Note that Jesus did not pray that his followers, His Church, would be wealthy or powerful. He prayed that we would experience in our daily lives the same infinite and eternal love that forms his very being. The Kingdom of Heaven is the infinite abundance of eternal love. No one can take that love from us. We can not earn it or demand it. We can only receive that love as the gift it is.
It is the love that reunites our lost and broken souls to the wholeness and holiness of the Living God. It is the love that invites us to make a real choice to enter into a new way of living. That new way of living gives us a new set of values and a new sense of priorities. That new way of living gives us a new awareness of meaning and purpose.

In His High Priestly prayer Jesus gives us a glimpse into his vision for human life. It is a vision that proceeds from the infinite and eternal love of God. It is a vision that is grounded in the experience of particular individuals each time we make a real choice to say yes to God’s invitation to a new way of living in Jesus Christ.

At the right hand of the Father, Jesus now prays for each of us to make that one real choice. He seeks us out in the circumstances of our daily lives. He prays for each of us by name. He invites each of us by name to experience the same eternal love that he embodies and holds for us.

Jesus prays to the Father and says: Heavenly Father I desire that each person here today receive the love that forms the Divine Essence of our being. I desire this so that they each may know the glory of a life lived in conscious awareness of living a blessed life. I desire this so the lost may be found, the broken healed, and the separated fragmented souls find reunification and transformation. I desire this, Holy Father, so that all who believe may be one with us, with each other and with the pattern of original blessing in their own souls. Father, fill them with your steadfast holy unconditional love. Amen.